July 30 – Happy Birthday, Medicare and Medicaid!

nPosted on July 30, 2019

Key Points

July 30, 1965:

nPresident L. B. Johnson signed into U.S. law the establishment of the Medicare and Medicaid programs.

nThese single-payer health care systems have worked really well for millions and millions of Americans, keeping many seniors out of poverty by making sure that their health care is affordable.

nThe history of Medicare has been bipartisan (both parties). Both former-President Theodore Roosevelt (who’d been Republican when he was President) and Presidents Harry Truman and John Kennedy (both Democrats) had pushed unsuccessfully for the government to provide universal health care – what we might deem as “Medicare for All,” or what we could compare to what every developed nation in the world, other than the U.S., provides its citizens. LBJ, a Democrat, signed the legislation founding the Medicare program, and Richard Nixon, a Republican, extended Medicare to people with certain long-term disabilities or diseases. George W. Bush, also a Republican, signed into law an optional prescription drug benefit, and Barack Obama, a Democrat, signed into law the Affordable Care Act (often called ObamaCare), which has provisions to decrease Medicare costs while improving delivery systems and increasing services.

nIn some ways, I love the idea of insurance of all kinds – all of us paying into a program that will bail out whoever gets slammed with a devastating illness, or car accident, or robbery, or hurricane. We all pay in a little bit so that – if we ourselves need it, or our neighbor or friend or community member or fellow citizen, we will be helped out in a time of trouble and won’t have to immediately sink into poverty and despair.

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In some ways, I hate insurance as it actually exists. I’ve had bad experiences with insurance, and I’ve heard lots of awful tales from others: we pay every month for years, and when we finally need to make a claim, our insurance goes up as punishment; we have a beautiful, well-maintained auto that we could sell for much more than Kelly Blue Book, but when someone destroys it in an accident, we only get a fraction of what it would cost to replace it; we need a medical test for a rare condition and have to jump through so many hoops to get it, or we are told it’s not covered.

I get that insurance companies have to make a profit and are beholden to their shareholders. I also get that that’s a problem, especially when we consider healthcare: when profits come before patients, healthcare in a developed nation – at least for people who aren’t rich – becomes a lot like healthcare in a country without modern facilities and medical training. If you can’t afford out-of-pocket costs for a doctor’s visit, operation, or medical test, the result is the same as if you have no doctor, surgical hospital, or lab available to you!

nMedicare and Medicaid have been the solution to the affordability question for millions of Americans, so let’s wish the programs a Happy 54th Birthday!