Medicare Benefits

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Medicare is a national social insurance program in the United States. It is administered by the federal government. It provides health insurance for citizens aged 65 years and above. These citizens must have initially worked, and paid into trust funds. Moreover, Medicare covers dialysis patients, or those with an end-stage renal disease. This program was established in 1966. Medicaid, on the other hand, is a social health program for both families and individuals, who are low income earners in the United States. It covers citizens of all ages, whose salaries are not enough to cater for healthcare. Those eligible must be U.S. citizens, who are of low income, and also the disabled. Medicare has several advantages. For starters, an individual who has subscribed for Medicare can still use their own private insurance plan for routine check. Therefore, one is not absolutely tied to the Medicare program only. However, every member is assigned a Primary Care Physician, who one must consult, to enjoy the full benefits. Better still, if one needs special attention, a specialist is assigned by Medicare, who is usually proposed by the Primary Care Physician (Berwick, 2011). In addition, the monthly payments are highly subsidized, or in some cases, there are no monthly payments. Moreover, medication is included in the kitty. However, one has to chip in a little to cover for part of the medication cost. Medicare advantages are similar in the whole country. This is not the case for Medicaid. Medicaid’s policies change according to the different states. Nonetheless, there are strengths of Medicaid which are common across the board. Medicaid tends to give a lot of specialized attention to expectant mothers. It offers nurse midwife services, family... ... middle of paper ... ... more prone to chronic illnesses. As for Medicaid, it needs to improve its chronic care management. Chronic care management should be made more affordable to those with chronic illnesses (Baicker, Katherine, & Amy Finkelstein, 2011). This way, the program will be more beneficial to more people. The program should also introduce, and support home and community based services. Providing care in home settings will be much cheaper than nursing homes. Moreover, Medicaid needs to come up with customized beneficiary services. Patients’ needs are not equal. Therefore, Medicaid should be flexible enough to abandon the one size fits all mentality. Anyway, that notwithstanding, we cannot ignore the fact that Medicare and Medicaid have revolutionized healthcare in the United States. Giving credit where it is due, these two programs continue to save millions of helpless lives.

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