Sign up for our upcoming webinar, Preparing For the 2022 ACA Filing Season, on October 26 at 11:00 AM, PT!

Sign up for our upcoming webinar, Preparing For the 2022 ACA Filing Season, on October 26 at 11:00 AM, PT!

Home Affordable Care Act Medicare and Medicaid Popular After 50 Years

Medicare and Medicaid Popular After 50 Years

2 minute read
by Robert Sheen
Medicare and Medicaid Popular After 50 Years

When Medicare and Medicaid were signed into law on July 30th 50 years ago, opponents attacked the programs as wasteful, intrusive and a precursor to socialism or communism. Today both programs, now greatly expanded, have strong support among Americans at large and in Congress.

The anniversary of these two groundbreaking healthcare programs led commentators to wonder whether the Affordable Care Act will over time come to enjoy the same kind of popular support.

President Lyndon Johnson signed Medicare into law at the Truman Library in Independence, Mo., a venue chosen to honor the proposal by President Harry Truman 16 years earlier for a national health insurance plan.

Johnson declared that, because of Medicare, “no longer will older Americans be denied the healing miracle of modern medicine,” nor would “illness crush and destroy the savings that they have so carefully put aside over a lifetime.”

Johnson’s promise “has been largely fulfilled,” said an article in The Los Angeles Times about Medicare and Medicaid.

“The two entitlements – one for the elderly and one for low-income Americans – have kept generations of seniors in their homes and extended life-saving insurance protections to poor children and families. The share of uninsured seniors, which was 48% in 1962, is now less than 2%,” the newspaper noted.

However, “the two programs today look far different than they did in 1965, as Democrats and Republicans have each expanded and reshaped them over the last five decades,” the article pointed out.

Medicare did not cover the cost of prescription drugs until President George W. Bush implemented a prescription drug benefit in 2003, the largest single expansion of Medicare services in the program’s history.

Another Republican president, Ronald Reagan, gave Medicare the power to set the prices it would pay to hospitals and doctors. He also doubled the size of Medicaid during his presidency.

The Washington Post noted that “today, Medicare and Medicaid together cover about 1 in 3 Americans.”

About 56 million seniors and disabled people are enrolled in Medicare, the newspaper noted. Medicaid “now covers an estimated 69 million people, making it the largest government health program. It pays for nearly half of U.S. births and a little over half of the nation’s nursing home bill.”

An editorial in the New York Times noted that “analysts say that between 1970 and 2010, Medicare contributed to a five-year increase in life expectancy at age 65, by providing early access to needed medical care,” and that Medicaid “has been critical in reducing childhood deaths and infant mortality.”

We’re committed to helping companies reduce risk, avoid penalties, and achieve 100% ACA compliance. For questions about the ACA contact us here.

Related posts

Brought to you by Trusaic

Featured In

© 2024 Copyright Trusaic – All Rights reserved.