A national government health care program, Medicare provides health care benefits to seniors, younger people with specific disabilities, and patients with end stage renal disease. The history of Medicare began in 1945 when President Harry Truman strongly advocated some type of government health care delivery system. Back then there was no such thing as managed care, and doctors simply charged a fee for their service. Of interest, in 1940, America had something called a two-tiered system. Paying patients in hospitals stayed in private rooms, while non-paying patients spent their hospital stay in a ward shared with many other patients.
In 1945 Harry Truman was called a socialist. Today the same label has been pinned on President Obama. Perhaps the real question might be, how does a country provide all of its citizens and residents health care without some level of socialism?
In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Medicare and Medicaid law. The Medicare law provided benefits to the elderly, and first people to receive their Medicare cards were former President Harry Truman and his beloved wife, Bess. Medicare’s sister program, Medicaid, provided benefits to those who were indigent or had very low incomes.
Over the next forty-five years, the benefits of Medicare have changed. There were benefits added in 1972 to include ancillary care, such as speech therapy, chiropractic visits and physical therapy. The decade of the seventies saw other continued changes in the delivery of health care that were not related to the Medicare. With managed care, health maintenance organizations, and preferred provider organizations, the business of delivering health benefits got more and more complicated.
As medicine progressed and made science prolonged lives, Medicare reacted by adding benefits for hospice care in 1982. However, a few years later in 1989, other benefits were repealed. Medicare no longer included catastrophic care and prescription drugs. This came as a rude awakening to elderly patients who could not afford the high cost of prescription drugs.
The cost of Medicare has escalated since its beginnings. In 1965 the monthly premium for medical insurance, Part B, was a mere three dollars. Today that same premium is $96.40 a month. However, Part A, hospital costs now range from $254 to $461 per month. When it comes to Medicare, nothing is simple. There are co-pays, carve-outs and ceilings on major expenses like the amount allowed per day for hospital stays and skilled nursing facilities. The cost of health care continues to be a major source of concern for an aging population.
Today, Medicare recipients must carefully review their medicare benefits and compare and contrast them with their private insurance. Some providers do not take new Medicare patients. There are benefits that are the responsibility of the Federal government, and others that belong to the State government. It is a challenge for elderly patients to even understand their benefits.
Like President Obama, former President Truman had a vision that all Americans would have health insurance. However, the reality and the vision may lose somethings in the translation. It will take several years for Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to become a part of American’s every day lives. Whenever there is a major governmental change, unexpected consequences are certain to occur. Some Americans see the Act as further inroads to a socialistic society. The law itself is 906 pages in length. It is difficult to even grasp all the Act entails by reading the law itself. How can Americans visualize all the concepts, much less have the epitome of bureaucracy, the government, implement the law. The history of Medicare started with Harry Truman, but it surely will not end with Obama. There will be more to come, and no one can predict all the consequences, good and bad, of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
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