Medicare took one year; healthcare reform to take decade

[Better Believe It]

Medicare took one year; reform to take decade
Even if bill is signed this fall, uninsured won't get coverage until 2013
Associated Press
July 20, 2009

WASHINGTON - President Lyndon Johnson signed the Medicare law on July 30, 1965, and 11 months later seniors were receiving coverage. But if President Barack Obama gets to sign a health care overhaul this fall, the uninsured won't be covered until 2013 — after the next presidential election.

In fact, a timeline of the 1,000-page health care bill crafted by House Democrats shows it would take the better part of a decade — from 2010-2018 — to get all the components of the far-reaching proposal up and running. The moving parts include a national insurance marketplace overseen by a brand new federal bureaucracy — the Health Choices Administration.

2013: The year of heavy lifting and major coverage changes. Insurance companies are barred from discriminating against people with health problems. The government opens the health insurance exchange — a new purchasing pool — to individuals and businesses with fewer than 10 workers. A government-sponsored plan is among the options available through the exchange, with premiums estimated 10 percent lower than private coverage. All plans in the exchange offer at least the basic benefits package. Individuals and families making up to four times the federal poverty level get subsidies to help pay for insurance. Individuals are required to get coverage — and employers to offer it — or face financial penalties. Businesses with payrolls under $250,000 are exempt from the mandate. Medicaid eligibility is expanded.

2014: The health insurance exchange is expanded to include companies with up to 20 employees and people who can't afford premiums under their employer's plan.

2015: The government decides whether to open the health insurance exchange — and the government-sponsored plan — to all employers.

2018: Employers who continue to provide coverage outside the exchange must offer at least the same basic benefits available through the government-regulated purchasing pool.

Please read the complete article at:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32013032/ns/politics-white_house

[aquart]

1. Crappy ideas take longer?

[Better Believe It]

2. Not really. We've had some pretty crappy ideas just fly by Congress without even hearings!

Should I mention Wall Street?

[kath]

8. and then there's the freakin' PATRIOT Act , which they didn't even *read*, for Jeebus' sake.

[dflprincess]

3. Apparently

This thing just gets worse the more it gets looked at; no wonder they're trying to slam it through so fast. And it's no wonder the Republican amendment that would have required Congress to go on the public option failed. (You might know, the Republicans finally come up with something I can be bipartisan about and it fails.)

[griloco]

6. what exactly did the reponzicans do

from 1995-2007 in congress
and
2001-2009 in the white house?

they are the failure.
well, if you're an american citizen, they fail us.
otoh, if you're billy tauzin's poor mother...

The Hon. Billy Tauzin (R-LA) addressing his fellow representatives in 2005. He is demanding they pass the Medicare Part II prescription-drug bill. We see Tauzin smarmily entreating his fellow public servants to do the right thing. He is supporting this plan, he assures them, for one reason only. “I love my mother,” he calls out in a quavering voice. He cannot bear the prospect of her not having enough money to buy the drugs she needs in her old age. Then, in a montage of other venues, he soulfully repeats himself on behalf of this legislation: “I love my mother,” he pleads again and again. Such hypocrisy would be laughable but for this troubling fact: The Medicare Part II prescription law was written not by our public servants but by the pharmaceutical industry, and it bars the government from negotiating for lower drug costs and seeks to prohibit access to lower-priced drugs from Canada.

http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/index.php/2007/09/14/i-love-my-mother/

[xchrom]

4. +1

[nightrain]

5. sad. I guess this is change we have to wait for.

[leftstreet]

7. K&R

[TomCADem]

9. Simplistic Argument - Lyndon Johnson Did Not Have A Huge Health Insurance Industry And...

Lyndon Johnson also was benefitting from the good will following the assasination of John F. Kennedy. Remember Kennedy had campaigned for Medicare, but he was assassinated. I would recommend reading the following book, which describes the development of the current healthcare industry. Quite simply, we did not have the huge healthcare insurance infrastrure we do now. Indeed, according to Relman, the creation of Medicare actually helped pave the way for the creation of the current healthcare insurance industry.

A Second Opinion: Rescuing America's Health Care

Relman, a professor emeritus at Harvard Medical School and former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, offers his diagnosis of what has gone wrong with American health care, along with a radical solution. In clear, eloquent prose, Relman explains how the rush to commercialize medicine harms both physicians and patients. Contrary to free-market dogma, Relman asserts, in medecine the profit imperative "increases costs; it may also jeopardize quality or aggravate the system's inequity." Relman's proposal: a single-payer insurance program supported by an earmarked, progressive health care tax, coupled with a reformed delivery system in which all hospitals would be not-for-profit and most physicians would be salaried employees of not-for-profit prepaid group practices. Relman acknowledges that today's political reality doesn't favor his program. Instead, it is fueling the drive for so-called consumer-driven health care (CDHC); in theory, by forcing consumers to pay for their own health care (for example, through high-deductible catastrophic insurance), CDHC promotes more prudent choices. But Relman calls CDHC "an illusion that bears little resemblance to the realities" for seriously ill patients.. He predicts that in a decade or so, when CDHC has failed to solve the health care crisis, the country may be ready to try his plan. (May 23)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

[andym]

10. Excellent post

Very informative. Historical comparisons are difficult to make, because the underlying conditions are usually so different. Your post make this point crystal clear.

[billyoc]

11. Johnson was meaner. Lawmakers knew they'd starve to death in the freezing darkness if they refused.

[foginthemorn]

12. They got the stimulus package up and running quickly-If they have the political

WILL--they can do the same with this. YES THEY CAN.

[Wednesdays]

13. K&R

:kick:

[raccoon]

14. Off to greatest with you! nt

[ProSense]

15. Typical moronic media

1965--Medicare and Medicaid were enacted as Title XVIII and Title XIX of the Social Security Act, extending health coverage to almost all Americans age 65 or over (e.g., those receiving retirement benefits from Social Security or the Railroad Retirement Board), and providing health care services to low-income children deprived of parental support, their caretaker relatives, the elderly, the blind, and individuals with disabilities. Seniors were the population group most likely to be living in poverty; about one-half had health insurance coverage.

1966--Medicare was implemented on July 1, serving more than 19 million individuals. Medicaid funding was available to States starting January 1, 1966; the program was phased-in by States over a several year period.

1967--An Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnosis, and Treatment (EPSDT) comprehensive health services benefit for all Medicaid children under age 21 was established.

1972--Medicare eligibility was extended to 2 million individuals under age 65 with long-term disabilities and to individuals with end-stage renal disease (ESRD). Medicare was given the authority to conduct demonstration programs.

Medicaid eligibility for elderly, blind, and disabled residents of a State could be linked to eligibility for the newly enacted Federal Supplemental Security Income Program (SSI). Eighteen million individuals were covered by Medicaid.

1977--The Health Care Financing Administration was established by Secretary Califano to administer the Medicare and Medicaid Programs.

1980--Coverage of Medicare home health services was broadened. Medicare supplemental insurance, also called Medigap, was brought under Federal oversight.

link

Medicare took years to pass from the time the idea originated, and then it took years to implement. Also the media is making assumptions about a bill that hasn't even been put up for a vote.

THE EVOLUTION OF MEDICARE . . . from idea to law