| Medicare is the national health plan that most | | | | increasing at the rate of someone turning 65 |
| people upon turning 65 years old, will qualify for it. | | | | every nine seconds, getting on Medicare and going |
| It consists of parts A, B, C, and D. You will have | | | | to the hospital. One decreases, the other |
| worked 40 quarters in your lifetime in order to | | | | increases. |
| obtain it. Others below age 65 will qualify due to a | | | | As far as Medicaid is concerned, you have even |
| Federal definition of disabled and then after 24 | | | | more of the 65 year old population being poorer |
| months after the declaration. | | | | due to the economy meltdown and when |
| Medicaid is simply welfare for poor folks who fall | | | | someone is poorer, they get sicker. So even |
| below a certain income level. It is administered by | | | | more stress is put on the state's budgets to pay |
| the state in which you live and the minimum | | | | that portion of what Medicare did not cover. No |
| income requirements vary by such. It pays the | | | | wonder the state's are going broke as well as the |
| balance of what Medicare doesn't. | | | | Federal government program! |
| Ideally , Medicare was set up in a trust fund, like | | | | What the focus of the solution should be is that |
| Social Security and the anticipated result was that | | | | more jobs need to be created so more people |
| the money would stay there until you turned 65 | | | | are paying into the system to accommodate the |
| and the interest as well as the principle would pay | | | | increasing turning 65 population. Also, the |
| for your health care. Unfortunately, the current | | | | emergency room should stop being used as a |
| beneficiaries medical claims under the program are | | | | doctors office. People go there when they get |
| being paid for by the taxes being deducted by | | | | sick, because they know that they will not be |
| the current workforce. The money that was held | | | | denied medical care and therefore the social |
| in trust was simply spent for whatever the | | | | workers at the hospital have the people enroll in |
| Congress decided to pay for other stuff. Why | | | | Medicaid so the hospital can try and recover |
| Medicare and Medicaid are going broke is this: You | | | | some of the costs from the state. |
| cannot sustain the money being paid for claims | | | | Solutions cannot happen overnight, but the turning |
| when the workforce is declining and the | | | | 65 baby boomers start in 2010 and continue a |
| beneficiary rolls are increasing. Think of it this way: | | | | aggressive increase for the next 10 years. We |
| Not enough people are working, having the tax | | | | have to be prepared for that, otherwise Medicare |
| deducted and the baby-boomer population is | | | | will definitely go broke. |