Medical Care Act of 1965

In July 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Social Security Amendments of 1965 into law, creating Medicare and Medicaid. These programs established government-provided health insurance coverage for elderly and poor Americans. Decades of debate similar to that which preceded the health care reform act that took effect in 2010 preceded this sweeping piece of legislation.

Definition

• Medicare automatically provides government-paid insurance coverage for retired individuals over age 65 who receive Social Security benefits. Disabled workers of any age who have received Social Security Disability Insurance, or SSDI, for 24 months also receive Medicare benefits, although individuals with Lou Gehrig's disease and end-stage renal failure have no waiting period. Medicaid benefits provide basic government-paid insurance coverage to low-income individuals of all ages.

History

• The push to pass government-provided health care coverage began with Harry Truman, who unsuccessfully attempted to introduce the National Health Insurance Initiative into law in 1948. His efforts reflected the inability and unwillingness to provide health insurance to a rapidly increasing elderly population. According to the 1950 census, the number of seniors in the American population grew from 3 million in 1900 to 12 million in 1950. Nearly two-thirds of all seniors had annual incomes less than $1,000 and only one in every eight seniors carried private health insurance. Between 1950 and 1963, the population of seniors multiplied from 12 million to 17.5 million, increasing their proportion to the total population from just over 8 percent to more than 9 percent, according to Our Documents. Nonetheless, critics of government-provided health care labeled the proposed legislation as socialized medicine.

Medicare and SSDI

• To qualify for SSDI and Medicare, individuals must meet the federal definition of disability, which is a medical condition that is expected to persist for a year or longer or result in death. The individual must also have accumulated sufficient work credits to qualify for Social Security benefits. The required number of work credits varies according to the age of the worker when the disability occurs. A disabled worker's spouse aged 62 or older may qualify for benefits; a spouse of any age caring for a child younger than 16 or a disabled child may also qualify. Unmarried children under 18 or unmarried children under age 19 attending school may qualify for a parent's benefits. Disabled children may qualify for a parent's benefits if the disability occurred before age 22. An ex-spouse aged 62 or older who has not remarried may qualify for a disabled worker's benefits if the marriage lasted at least 10 years, according to the Social Security Administration.

Medicare vs. Medicaid

• Although Medicare and Medicaid came into effect under the same legislation, the two programs differ in several respects. Medicaid is income-based; Medicare is not. Medicare is administered by the federal government, while state governments administer Medicaid using federal guidelines. Medicare recipients must pay a premium for Part B services including durable care equipment, along with co-payments for some services, while Medicaid recipients generally receive coverage for no charge, according to Neighborhood Legal Services.