Protect and Strengthen Medicare and Medicaid for the Next 50 Years!

SeaBreeze

Endlessly Groovin'
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Helping to protect and strengthen Medicare and Medicaid for the next fifty years. http://billmoyers.com/2015/01/24/protect-strengthen-medicare-medicaid-programs-another-50-years/

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This year marks the 50th anniversary of Medicare and Medicaid, two programs that play a key role in ensuring that elderly and disabled Americans have access to health care and are not bankrupted by its costs.

Before Medicare and Medicaid were created in 1965, 35 percent of Americans over 65 did not have health insurance, leaving a huge uninsured aging population with either insurmountable doctor and hospital bills, or more frequently, no health care at all.


While we celebrate the fact that millions of people are better off now than they were in 1965, we must be aware that access to health care is continually threatened by program cuts, and millions of beneficiaries have trouble accessing the care they are entitled to because the programs don’t always work as well as they could.


Medicare provides health care for 54 million seniors and people with disabilities, while Medicaid is the single largest source of health care coverage in the nation, covering some 68 million low- income children, families, pregnant women, workers, people with disabilities and seniors.
Since health care costs are one of the leading drivers of bankruptcy and because these programs serve so many people who are already living in poverty, preserving and strengthening Medicare and Medicaid is one of the biggest things we can do to fight poverty.


We and other healthcare advocates are using the opportunity of the Affordable Care Act to strengthen and improve these programs by working to ensure new coverage options and models of care reach communities of color and low-income families and improve access to the services they most need.

In addition, we and everyone who cares about poverty, must use the opportunity of the 50
thanniversary of these programs to celebrate their successes and speak out strongly against program cuts or changes that would threaten the health and economic security of some of our most vulnerable citizens.
 

This nations Entitlement programs are due for some serious attention in Washington. The first crisis is scheduled to come sometime in 2016/2017 when the SSDI funding begins to run out. How that program is handled will be a good indicator of how Medicare/Medicaid, and even SS are handled...in the long term.
 
I don't regard Medicare and Medicaid to be on the same level at all. We pay for Medicare part A during our working years. We pay for Medicare Part B optionally when we become eligible for Part A benefits. Additionally, Medicare has a deductible and co-pays.

Medicaid is a give-away to people of working age who pay no premium, no deductible and no co-pays.
 
Lifting the cap on FICA contributions to $500,000 would go a long way in making SS and medicare solvent forever.. but that's a tax increase on the wealthy, better to let everyone else's benefits be cut.
 
"Lifting the Cap" would be the most obvious and sensible solution to insure the solvency of SS/Medicare. However, first, we would have to convince the Wealthy politicians that they wouldn't go broke by contributing a bit more.

We will find out within the next year or two just which direction Washington is headed when they have to deal with SSDI.
 
Lifting the cap on FICA contributions to $500,000 would go a long way in making SS and medicare solvent forever.. but that's a tax increase on the wealthy, better to let everyone else's benefits be cut.

Where can I find information to confirm? Earned income over $500K multiplied by the FICA would indicate the approximate additional annual income to the FICA fund.
 


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