At rear are Lady Bird Johnson, Vice President Hubert Humphrey, and former first lady Bess Truman.
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“No longer will older Americans be denied the healing miracle of modern medicine”. Today’s seniors were young adults busy with their lives and families.
Fifty years later, virtually all seniors have coverage, a far higher rate than younger people.
Its supporters say it has been so successful that the country ought to consider universal, government-funded health care – a kind of Medicare for all.
Together the programs provide health coverage for 31% of Americans.
Critics of the 1965 legislation warned that both programs would spend much more than supporters predicted, that price controls and rationing of care would follow and that the quality of care would eventually suffer. “Over 2.5 million Pennsylvanians – over 1 out of every 6 people in the commonwealth – get their health care from Medicaid”. The federal government would administrate Medicare while Medicaid would be run by individual states.
In the South particularly, it was common to find segregated hospitals as well as nursing homes.
Now: Although racial and ethnic health disparities persist, segregated facilities are unheard of. “Medicaid programs have also been increasingly aggressive purchasers of drugs”. In 2011, when the first boomers joined the program, the Medicare population stood at 47.6 million; by 2030, when the last boomer signs up, it will top 81 million.
Like Medicare and Medicaid 30 years later, Social Security was controversial when it became law in 1935. Among poor children, that rises to 3 out of 4.
A lot of the spending growth comes from millions of people gaining insurance through the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act-the insured share of the population is projected to climb from 86 percent in 2013 to 92.4 percent by 2024. It also pays for about half of all births in the U.S and a similar amount in all of the nursing home bills for the nation. However, prescription drug costs grew 13 percent in 2014.
Now: Prescription coverage took effect in 2006 under Republican President George W. Bush. Most recently, the Affordable Care Act made many preventive care services, such as cancer screenings, available for no out-of-pocket cost.
The nurses want Congress to support House Resolution 676, which would expand Medicare to all U.S. residents. A few things we won’t tolerate: personal attacks, obscenity, vulgarity, profanity (including expletives and letters followed by dashes), commercial promotion, impersonations, incoherence, proselytizing and SHOUTING.
Private insurers worked behind the curtain for processing claims under Medicaid and Medicare but were not generally involved in delivering the benefits.
About 3 in 4 Medicaid beneficiaries are enrolled in private managed care plans. For the past 5 years the average monthly premium for a basic Medicare Part D plan has been between $30 and $32. Payment for Medicare and Medicaid services are only provided to facilities that can ensure that they do not discriminate the programs’ beneficiaries.
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As health economist Theodore Marmor pointed out: “Hospital price increases presented the most intractable political problem for the Johnson administration”.
