Cheri Wine (Edison State College): Medicare

In 1945, President Harry Truman asked congress to creaete a national healthcare system that would provide universal medical benefits for all U.S. citizens. The issue was debated for the next 20 years. In 1965 President Lyndon Johnson signed into law a goverment run program that provided benefits to U.S. citizens 65 years or older. July 30th, 1965 at the medicare signing ceremony he was quoted ”No longer will older americans bedenied the healing miracle of modern medicine. no longer will illness crush and destroy the savings they have so carefully put away over a lifetime so they might  enjoy dignity in their later years.” 

Medicare is run by the Federal goverment and gives its beneficiaries basic hospital and medical coverage. Today, over 44 million Americans recieve Medicare coverage. For many of them, Medicare is the only way of accessing affordable health insurance. Because Medicare is funded by the goverment, its costs are much more accessible than purchasing individual coverage of one’s own.

The are several concerns with this goverment run health care for the elderly. People who refuse to join Medicare are not allowed to recieve their earned Socail Security benefits. That being said, Medicare pays olny about half of all heakth care costs of seniors. In 1997, 3-,840 seniors paid an avergae of $22,124 dollars, either out of pocket costs or through supplemental insurance. Medicare also does not cover the cost of long term care and nursing home facility costs, unless is related to a hospitalization or other urgent medical care. Medicare has been unable to lower he cost of out of pocket payments for seniors. In 2000, a study by the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) found seniors paying an average of $2,510 dollars per year on out of pocket costs. This does not include home care or nursing home care. However in 1964 prior to the pass of Medicare seniors where paying 20% of their income, after Medicare was passed it lower the percent to 19% of of their income on out of pocket costs. 40 million people are now enrolled in Medicare, approximately 77 million babyboomers will begin entering Medicare in 2011. Becasue of this, Medicare is facing insufficient funding. Approximately 4 workers pay for one Medicare recipient today. The change will occur with the babyboomers entering medicare to 2.3 workers for each Medicare recipient by 2030. Medicare will face bankruptcy accornding to the current estimates, it will be insolvent by 2026.

Medicare had a noble beginning. However, it’s goals for persons over the age of 65 to have access to accessible health insurance is becoming difficult to achieve. It will become unacheivable in the future. This is one reason that we should have reform in health care, as well as decrease the dependency on goverment run programs.

This entry was posted on 16. February 2010 at 20:18 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.