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Before “Medicare for All,” there was simply Medicare, the very fashionable program that serves 60 million Americans age 65 and older or youthful individuals with sure disabilities.
But whereas Medicare is far beloved by most of these it serves, it’s something however easy.
This week KHN’s “What the Health?” podcast takes a deep dive into Medicare. First, host Julie Rovner talks with Tricia Neuman, a senior vice chairman answerable for Medicare Policy on the Kaiser Family Foundation. (KHN is an editorially impartial program of the muse.)
Then, panelists Paige Winfield Cunningham of The Washington Post, Joanne Kenen of Politico and Kimberly Leonard of the Washington Examiner be part of Rovner for a dialogue of a number of the Medicare points on the entrance burner in Washington in 2019.
Among the takeaways from this week’s podcast:
You can’t perceive Medicare with out getting a deal with on its alphabet, from A to D. Medicare additionally has a strong function for personal insurance coverage. About one-third of beneficiaries decide to hitch personal insurance coverage that contract with the federal authorities to supply a substitute for the standard, fee-for-service authorities program. And that enterprise is very worthwhile for personal insurance coverage. As Americans age, many fondly sit up for Medicare, imagining it’s going to pay all their well being payments. But this system has hefty cost-sharing necessities and doesn’t cowl many bills, together with long-term nursing house care, dental care and most imaginative and prescient care. Federal officers are keen to search out methods to chop Medicare’s drug prices. But that raises many questions, resembling whether or not Medicare ought to negotiate with drugmakers over costs or arrange its personal formulary of medication it might cowl. An even more durable query is how Medicare can work to regulate prices for the expensive medicine administered in medical doctors’ workplaces. Strong congressional lobbying from medical doctors and drugmakers has derailed efforts to take action previously. A vexing concern for some seniors is getting statement care on the hospital when they aren’t sick sufficient to be admitted however are too sick to go house. Patients receiving statement care seemingly face greater value sharing than in the event that they have been admitted and Medicare received’t pay for any nursing house care.
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