In 2020, the Trump Administration launched a new policy “experiment” designed to privatize Traditional Medicare.

Under this model, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has moved millions of Traditional Medicare beneficiaries into mostly commercial, for-profit plans called Direct Contracting Entities, without the enrollees’ full understanding or consent.

In ways similar to commercial Medicare Advantage plans, these entities have a financial incentive to interfere with care decisions and waste taxpayer dollars when compared with the efficiency of Traditional Medicare.

The Biden Administration has renamed this program “REACH” and made it even more generous to industry. But privatization by any name threatens the future of Medicare as we know it.

Stop REACH

Chair Lake County Democratic Central Committee

Sissa (it rhymes with Lisa) Harris moved to Lake County in 1980. She is the granddaughter of Swedish immigrants, born in the Midwest, but moved to California in childhood. Sissa’s career was primarily in Human Services. In Lake County, she worked for NCO Rural Communities’ Child Care where she was a Resource and Referral Specialist; AWARE (Abused Women A Recovery Environment) where she was a Teaching and Demonstrating Homemaker for residents under Family Maintenance contracts with CPS, Director of the Lake County Arts Council, and finally accepted a position that she held for 20 years in the Extended Opportunity Program and Services (EOPS) department of Woodland Community College.

In her off hours, and into retirement, Sissa also served as an adjunct professor of Sociology, Psychology and Human Services at both Woodland Community College and Mendocino College, and as a Teaching Assistant in the CSU Chico Sociology Department. Teaching was very rewarding; she says “Assisting students in understanding complex material is just the best!”

Sissa holds a Masters of Art from Sonoma State University in Depth Psychology. Her Bachelors of Art is from California State University Chico in Sociology. She obtained her Associates Degree from Yuba College, Clear Lake Campus (now the Lake County Campus of Woodland Community College).

In her personal life, she has 6 grown kids and 11 grandchildren. Sissa enjoys keeping up with all of them and their educational and career pursuits. She also enjoys traveling, outdoor sports (kayaking in particular), making art and music, and being involved in making the Lake County community a better place to live. She appreciate learning about people’s stories, histories, and worldview – and other ways of being in the world.

As a Democrat, she was elected as the Chair of the Lake County Democratic Central Committee in 2023. Prior to that Sissa served on the Elections Committee, where she was appointed Chair for the 2021-2022 election cycle. She has been a delegate to the CADEM conventions since 2017, and is a member of the Women’s Caucus, Rural Caucus and Senior Caucus. She also is a past Ex-Officio alternate for John Garamendi.