Is Medicare As We Know It On theChopping Block

With healthcare change in the forefront of everyone’s mind today the existing healthcare programs for America’s aging population [http://www.seniorhousinghouston.com/lifestyle/activities.html] are still limping down the road but for how long?

Medicare a component of Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” program signed into law in 1965 was never planned to be the all encompassing everything for everybody program that it has grown into today. It was sold as a “short term program” for those low income people who had no access to healthcare otherwise. And the cost of the program was to be “modest” by Government standards.

Sound familiar?

How Medicare will be affected by President Obama’s revised universal healthcare plan is anyone’s guess. The senior inhabitants of America is apparently expendable in political terms as the new programs take shape. European health programs upon which the new Administration’s plan seems to be based routinely pare services to elderly patients when the economics of keeping someone alive outweighs the “value” that person adds to society. It is disquieting that that kind of healthcare may be on the horizon for our own mature citizens soon.

Medicare is not a ideal system but it has settled into a workable program for those seniors [http://www.seniorhousingtexascity.com/photos.html] who otherwise would not have healthcare insurance. Broken into parts A & B Medicare helps with the cost of health care but it does not cover all medical expenses or the cost of most long-term care. Those entitled for free Medicare hospital insurance Part A may enroll in Medicare Part B by paying a monthly premium. There is also a prescription drug component part D & a program called Medicare Advantage part C which is an HMO or PPO preference for the Medicare program. Part B of the program is designed to pay doctors & suppliers that are not covered by hospital insurance.

Should seniors be wary of the new planned health care program? Will it replace the existing Medicare system as we know it? Is it going to be more expensive to carry out? Will the new system be less efficient even though Medicare is not all that professional today ? Can we with confidence trust the Government to run the programs to our mutual benefit? Are we destined to mimic the Government run health care programs found in Europe Canada & elsewhere around the world?

The answers to those & many more questions have not been addressed by congress & in all probability will not be prior to enacting some kind of universal health care program. So Medicare may very well be on the chopping block at least Medicare as we know it.

Some form of health care for America’s seniors will surly come out of the new program. How it will appear & how it will work out are two more very important unanswered questions. Sadly the questions may remain unanswered until it simply too late to do anything about it.

Paul Woodall
Mansions Affordable Housing
Houston Texas

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