The Kaiser Family Foundation notes that Truman, an advocate for expanded health care during his presidency, was the first person to enroll. Medicare is the program which offers health insurance to individuals aged 65 or older, those who are disabled from various accidents and those who suffer from either end stage renal diseases or Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). In doing so, Medicare has kept up with dramatic demographic changes and led the charge toward improving health care delivery. Medicare and Medicaid’s “unfunded liabilities for the next 75 years exceed $45 trillion, almost three times the officially acknowledged national debt”, Barron’s reported.
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That’s not all bad news.
These promises we made as a nation have saved millions of our own people from poverty and hardship, allowing us new freedom, new independence, and the chance to live longer, better lives.
“A lot of this is no surprise because the Baby Boomers – one of our biggest generations – are nearing the age in life when they start to deal with more health problems and more complex health problems”, responds Hadley Heath Manning, director of health policy at the Independent Women’s Forum. The newly insured are presumably pretty happy about it too.
Supporters of Obamacare think they have an answer: Obama!
Filton said in the company’s quarter two earnings report that its acute care hospitals have benefited from a decline in the “aggregate of charity care, uninsured discounts, and provision of doubtful accounts as a percentage of gross charges” for the year, through June 30.
This was never a particularly plausible narrative, because costs began falling during the Bush administration.
Anyone on Medicaid would be surprised to learn they are receiving “efficient, high quality care”. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today announced that he will introduce legislation to provide Medicare-for-all health insurance.
So why did costs fall? “Financial security was an enormous factor in our design”. We need that money to take care of our people. So health care cost growth fell.
Sanders’ proposal also would rein in skyrocketing prices for prescription drugs.
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Still, even with the favorable changes from the federal law, millions of Californians continue to be unable to buy affordable supplemental insurance and HMOs are dropping the beneficiaries most in need of their help. Before Medicare, only half had some form of health insurance. The racial segregation that health care facilities practiced is removed with it. This also assisted in delivering better health care.
