Medicare's Midlife CrisisMost Americans, and even most seniors, know little or nothing about Medicare and the efforts being made to reform it. In Medicare's Midlife Crisis Sue Blevins examines the program's origins, evolution, and future policy options. She points out that even before Medicare was created in 1965, more than three out of four seniors were protected by a safety net for medical assistance and the average life expectancy for older Americans was on the rise. |
Contents
Coverage under Medicare Part A year 2001 | 99 |
Coverage under Medicare Part B Year 2001 | 101 |
What Medicares FeeforService Program Doesnt Cover | 103 |
Notes | 105 |
Index | 123 |
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Common terms and phrases
2001 Annual Report actuaries Alan Greenspan Americans billion Blue Cross Board of Trustees Budget Cato Institute CCMC choice Committee on Finance compulsory health insurance Congress Congressional contracts Costs of Medical covered Department of Health doctors durable medical equipment elderly enacted enrolled in Medicare estimated expenditures federal government Federal Hospital Insurance Government Printing Office HCFA health care health care costs Health Care Financing Health Spending home health Hospital Insurance Trust Ibid income increase Insurance Trust Fund long-term March 19 Medi Medicaid medical privacy medical savings accounts medical services Medicare and Medicaid Medicare beneficiaries Medicare program Medicare reform Medicare spending Medicare's national health insurance nursing home out-of-pocket outpatient patients payments payroll taxes physicians premiums prescription drug coverage President private insurance projected proposal retirement social insurance Social Security Administration Statistics taxpayers Testimony U.S. Department U.S. House U.S. Senate Committee United United Seniors Association Wall Street Journal Washington workers
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Page 33 - Professions exist because the people believe they will be better served by licensing especially prepared experts to minister to their needs. The licensed monopolies which professions enjoy constitute, in themselves, severe restraints upon competition. But they are restraints which depend upon capacity and training, not special privilege. Neither do they justify concerted criminal action to prevent the people from developing new methods of serving their needs. There is sufficient historical evidence...
Page 30 - The report affords for the first time a scientific basis on which the people of every locality can attack the perplexing problem of providing adequate medical care for all persons at costs within their means." Chapter I outlines the present situation and states the nature of the problem. In very brief compass, it gives the highlights from the Committee's 26 fact-finding studies. Chapter II enunciates the essential elements of a satisfactory medical program and discusses the three major lines of approach...
Page 28 - The American Medical Association declares its opposition to the institution of any plan embodying the system of compulsory contributory insurance against illness, or any other plan of compulsory insurance which provides for medical service to be rendered contributors or their dependents, provided, controlled, or regulated by any state or Federal government.
Page 59 - It has been estimated that between 1965 and 1975, the cost of living will increase by more than 20 percent.
Page 27 - This investigation was recently made by Dr. John B. Andrews, secretary of the American Association for Labor Legislation, in cooperation with the Bureau of Labor.
Page 55 - Myers, Chief Actuary of the Social Security Administration from 1947 to 1970 testified before the Ways and Means Committee in 1977 that the notch could have been prevented.
Page 30 - We have the knowledge, the techniques, the equipment, the institutions, and the trained personnel to make even greater advances during the next fifty years. We know how to do many things which we fail to do or do in an incomplete and often most unsatisfactory manner. As a result of our failure to utilize fully the results of scientific research, the people are not getting the service which they need — first, because in many cases its cost is beyond their...
Page 35 - That little line was responsible for so many telegrams to the members of Congress that the entire social security program seemed endangered until the Ways and Means Committee unanimously struck it out of the bill.
Page 107 - Peter J. Ferrara and Michael D. Tanner. Common Cents, Common Dreams: A Layman's Guide to Social Security Privatization. Washington, DC: Cato Institute, 1998. Laurence K. Kotlikoff and Jeffrey Sachs. "It's High Time to Privatize.