Medicare Pros And Cons

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The United States has different and benefited successful welfare programs which have gained profits to the country and gained aid to the society. Medicare and Medicaid have been popular for a long time now and have kept U.S society well taken care of. In the 50 years since they were signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson, Medicare and Medicaid have grown into health insurances huge accomplishment, covering one-third of all Americans and accounting for $4 of every $10 spent on healthcare today. Widely supported by receivers, the programs have been severely successful on many fronts like Medicare has extended health insurance to nearly all the elderly, and Medicaid provides vital fetal and maternity care for almost half of U.S. births. Both programs have improved narrow the healthcare gap between rich and poor, and between whites and minorities providing further benefits to the groups. But with the benefits, the programs size is also their biggest challenge. As some Americans’ can’t provide themselves and their family with insurance care, Medicare and Medicaid were designed to plug too deep holes in health coverage for retirees and disadvantaged …show more content…

Together, they cost more than $1 trillion annually and they're expected to consume a growing percentage of federal and state budgets in the future. Those pressures have led House Republicans to propose transforming Medicare into a funding for private insurance, with a cap on the program's growth, while giving states Medicaid block grants that would not keep pace with increase. Those changes wouldn't address the forces driving up the costs of the program, however; they would simply shift costs off federal taxpayers and onto states and beneficiaries. Unless those forces were spoken, Medicaid would become increasingly difficult for states to maintain and Medicare harder for seniors to

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