Medicare
In 1965, president Lyndon Baines Johnson launched his Great Society program, its primary focus to aid in making American society a better place, hence the name. He targeted areas like employment, education, and medicine. Concerning medicine, it was difficult for many elderly citizens to pay health care costs after retirement. Johnson would abruptly push through the Medicare Act, which would provide the elderly with health insurance to cover and hospital costs. Medicare only applied to the elderly and disabled, leaving many poor people without health coverage. So, its counterpart, Medicaid was passed by Congress so the poor who were not elderly were not left out. Medicare was an initial success, resulting in many healthy and still financially secure senor citizens. 30 years later, Medicare still exists, with a few changes made necessary by time and progress. The Medicare program has made significant changes socially, politically, and especially economically, and vice versa. Even as we speak, the U.S. government is trying to improve and preserve this critical program, and hopefully will continue to do so in the future. Although the elderly are the main beneficiaries for Medicare, just about everyone in soc
Medicare has also received a lot of attention politically over the past decade or so. Congress tries to make reforms to the current program often, and there is a lot of disputes about when and what to reform. Earlier in 1998, President Clinton proposed a plan that would allow 62-64 year olds to buy into the Medicare program by paying a monthly premium. Another option suggested was to allow persons 55 years or older to have access to medical coverage if they involuntary become unemployed. His overall goal is to increase the coverage for middle-aged Americans as well. "This is an issue of access. We're not solving all the financing problems of the health care system," stated Donna Shalala, the Secretary of Health and Human Services. It isn't an unusual occurance in Washington however, to have Congress and the White House see things differently. One aspect of disagreement involves the giving of prescription drugs to those on Medicare. Sen. John Breaux (D) of Louisiana and Representative Bill Thomas (R) of California tried proposing on their own ideas to Congress. They suggested that there should be limited coverage for prescription drugs and a gradual increase in the minimum age requirement to be considered for Medicare to 67. They could not get enough support to get a super-majority needed for formal consideration, and Clinton didn't approve of their ideas anyway. Clinton himself wants more thorough coverage for prescription coverage and insists on keeping the basic format the same as it currently is. He would also like to see 15% of predicted budget surpluses to go to the Medicare and Medicaid programs, an estimated amount of $700 billion. Most Republicans, and Breaux, believe that the surplus plan would in fact help in the short run and would ease the pressure in future reforms. It won't, however, solve any long term issues: "Some people want an issue out of Medicare rather than solving the problem," Breaux said. Clinton said that no reform will be made this year. On the plus side, the nation's strong economy over the past several years has pushed back the bankruptcy date of Medicare from 2008 to 2015. "Medicare [will run out] in 1
Some common words found in the essay are:
Haley Barbour, George Bush's, Medicare Act, Thomas California, President Clinton, Social Security, Medicare Physicians, Baines Johnson, Baby Boom, Breaux Clinton, health care, health care system, nursing facilities, care system, hospital outpatients, home health, passed congress, medicare program, medical coverage, home health care, $42 spent, medicare funds,
Approximate Word count = 1460
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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