Fifty years later, virtually all seniors have coverage, a far higher rate than younger people.
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One in five people with Medicare also rely on Medicaid to cover the things Medicare doesn’t, such as nursing home care, and dental and vision care. He is past president of Physicians for a National Health Program, and just wrote an essay on Medicare entitled, “Celebrate Medicare’s 50th Birthday By Expanding It To All”.
Both programs have a lot of critics. A mix of tax increases, benefit cuts, and reductions in payments to service providers will be needed sooner or later, experts say.
“No other program has changed so many lives”.
“For half a century, Medicaid has been a lifeline of support to countless millions of individuals and families across the United States”, the letter says.
Then: In 1965, life expectancy at age 65 was 13.5 years for men, and 18 years for women. Sure, there was pushback about the cost of implementation in 1965, and there is discussion now about the cost to cover the growing population of adults aged 65 and older who qualify for it, but isn’t it in our Constitution that all should have access to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? The racial segregation that health care facilities practiced is removed with it. This also assisted in delivering better health care.
Perhaps as significant is a lesser-known legacy of Medicare: the desegregation of hospitals.
Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, who chairs the health subcommittee of the House Ways & Means panel, favors combining Medicare Parts A and B – the program’s hospital services and medical insurance portions – and allow for more competition among insurers for seniors’ business.
Early in the panel discussion, Furman said it’s impossible to make the moral argument for Medicare and Medicaid without the economic case as well, and vice versa. The expansion is optional for states, and 30 states plus Washington, D.C., have either accepted it or proposed to do so.
Medicaid has evolved into a blanket program for all low-income people.
Now: Prescription coverage took effect in 2006 under Republican President George W. Bush. And this will provide the funds to pay up to 90 days of hospital care for each illness, plus diagnostic care, and up to 100 home health visits after you are 65.
“It’s the typical American style of doing things”, said economist Gail Wilensky, Medicare administrator under President George H.W. Bush.
The AMA opposed Medicare out of fear the government would become too deeply involved in the practice of medicine.
The decades-long push to create the two health insurance programs was like “a long-distance run, ” said Dr. David Satcher, a former U.S. surgeon general, at a Carter Center forum Wednesday.
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– Medicare beneficiaries’ average total out-of-pocket spending on premiums and healthcare was 44 percent higher in 2010 ($4,734) than in 2000.
