Ordinary insurance companies were not willing to extend insurance services to older citizens since it was considered a losing proposition.
With the enactment of Medicare, 99% of older people in the country have health insurance and poverty among this group has dropped significantly. With this program, people now have access to better healthcare services which has resulted in increased life expectancy. The reason we can say with some degree of certainty that Medicare has met its goals is grounded in the fact that it has provided elderly with greater access and more choices of healthcare facilities. Medicare gives them the opportunity to choose the best physician, good inpatient services and also pays their bills right on time to avoid problems with hospital and medical care authorities. "Medicare provides health benefits to 41.7 million elderly and disabled Americans. Most (88%) have their health bills paid by the traditional fee-for-service program, while 11% are covered by managed care plans, primarily HMOs." (Medicare advantage)
Along with this, Medicare has also managed to keep its costs significantly lower than those of private insurance companies. Medicare spends 2% of its budget on administration of the program while most insurance companies spend anywhere between 8 to 15%. By the end of 1998, Medicare witness less than 1% increase in costs per person while it went up 6 to 10% for private insurance companies.
Compared to Medicaid which is viewed as a comprehension program for low income groups, Medicare has certainly outperformed Medicaid in many ways. In 1998, when 88% of older people were covered by Medicare, 73% of low income groups did not have proper insurance. This means that an overwhelming majority of people (around 44 million) were left uninsured. Even employer-based insurance programs have not been able to perform well. Most workers are poorly covered under these programs and premiums have gone up from 12 to 22%.
Even though Medicare is a successful program, it comes with its flaws. These flaws require additional insurance. As we mentioned above that while Medicare provides good coverage,...
This means that the program will need to support many more people than it currently does, and there will be fewer (proportionally) workers paying into the system (Johnson 2006). The particular problem cited and explored by this author is prescription drug coverage, with the researcher predicting ongoing volatility in coverage laws and particulars, but truly this trend has many far-reaching implications. The aging of the U.S. population and the increased
In 2003, President Bush expanded Medicare, by subsidizing prescription drug costs under Part D. There are further changes to Medicare and Medicaid in the Affordable Care Act. There were expansions in the number of preventative health care services offered for free (such as colorectal screening), and by closing gaps in prior coverage (HHS, 2012). Berenson (2010) notes that the ACA pays for this expanded coverage by decreasing Medicare spending by
Medicare and Medicaid These two terms are government programs meant to assist specific groups of in the United States regarding health matters and are both managed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Medicare is a social insurance program that pays for hospital and medical care for elderly and certain disabled Americans. The program consists of hospital insurance which pays
Unlike Medicare, Medicaid is not a purely federally-funded program. Every state has a Medicaid budget, which the federal government 'matches' based upon a formula, despite the fact that Medicaid is considered an entitlement, implying that enrollees are entitled to benefits regardless of where they live. Because federal funding is 'matched' that means that states that spend more on Medicaid -- usually wealthier states -- tend to receive more federal funds
Medicaid and Medicare Fraud Describe health news story combating health care fraud Medicare Medicaid• Examine evaluate corporate structure governance, culture, focus social responsibility • Recommends Medicare and Medicaid fraud: An overview Medicare and Medicaid fraud: An overview While there is still little consensus regarding the best ways to go about enacting healthcare reform, one issue that unites both Democrats and Republicans is the need to eliminate Medicaid and Medicare waste, fraud and abuse. According
There will no longer be automatic re-enrollment for recipients. The plan seeks to cut the cost of Medicaid by moving at least half of the recipients out of the program (Medicaid changes on the horizon in Illinois, 2011, Quad City Times). Even President Obama recently proposed cost cuts to the federal Medicaid program, in light of the pressure to reduce government expenditures. Obama has proposed replacing the federal Medicaid matching
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