Medicare, Medicaid turn 50

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and Maryland Representative Donna Edwards joined the rally celebrating the 50th anniversary of Medicare in Washington, D.C. this Thursday with several hundred nurses, health care workers, and labor allies. We have to reduce overutilization of tests and interventions that don’t improve health and focus our resources on what works. It was generally conceded that both bills, despite the vastness of their scope, were aimed not at increasing the power of the Federal Government, but at eradicating some remaining blemishes in the Great Society.

The Tennessee Health Care Campaign, headed by Walter Davis, celebrated the 50th anniversary of Medicare and Medicaid at the Nashville Farmers’ Market on Thursday. By the 1970s, 96 percent of seniors were covered.

No, Ronald Reagan urging Congress to vote against the creation of Medicare. “I think a lot of people don’t realize how important Medicaid is for the elderly also as well as Medicare”.

Perhaps as significant is a lesser-known legacy of Medicare: the desegregation of hospitals. “Part B” benefited the oppositional Medical Society. Ronald Reagan himself warned against “socialized medicine”.

CMS says there are a number of factors affecting expenditure growth over the next several years, including major insurance coverage expansions and premium subsidies under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), an aging population and anticipated economic growth. Most paid with health insurance or dug into their own savings, when they could pay at all. “Every year, thousands die just because they can’t afford to go to the doctor”. Those who had neither were left to a life of poverty and insecurity.

Hospitals continued charity care but realized the benefits of a program that covered poorer folks.

To meet that promise, Medicare coverage expanded over the years to include not only hospitalizations, but outpatient care, preventive services, as well as new tests and treatments. Johnson’s compromise was designed to pass the legislation.

“No other program has changed so many lives”. Medicare moved toward a plethora of for-profit insurance plans – with mixed results.

“By building on private insurance rather than going for expanding Medicaid for all”, says Woodlander, “they added additional dollars to those administrative costs”. That’s more than $5 trillion per year. “In fact, the majority of adults with Medicaid have full- or part-time jobs, but those jobs either don’t offer employer-sponsored coverage or pay too little to support the purchase of private coverage”. The truth is that the Republican goal has been, is, and will continue to be to get rid of Medicare. For example, a study released last month ” revealed that state Medicaid programs are limiting coverage of sofosbuvir, a potentially lifesaving medication for those with Hepatitis C, a chronic condition disproportionately affecting minorities”. After a slowdown this decade, spending is expected to accelerate through 2024, when spending is projected to reach $866 billion.

Future generations will grapple with balancing health costs, high quality and access.

Kathy Stiffler, acting deputy director of the Medical Services Administration within the Department of Health and Human Services, said Michigan had gotten creative over the years in how it structured and administered Medicaid.