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Health Insurance
About Medicare
Medicare is a program created by the United States government to help provide health insurance for people who are 65 or older than that, people with disabilities and for people who have life-ending disease or illness.
This landmark program came into effect when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed it into a law in the year 1965. Funding for this program comes from two sources, one is payroll taxes imposed by the Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) and the Self-Employment Contributions Act of 1954.
The original Medicare program consisted of two parts – Part A and Part B. Part A provided coverage for hospital stay, while Part B provides coverage for medical services not covered under Part A. Part B coverage is for outpatient type and is more of a supplement to the coverage offered by Part A of this program. The balanced Budge Act passed in 1997 enabled the Medicare program to be made available to people through private health insurance plans. This is the Part C coverage and is referred to as the Medicare Advantage Plans. In January 2006 the Medicare Part D coverage came into effect, with the passing of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act. Those with Part A and art B coverage are eligible for taking it up. Those interested in this coverage must get into a stand-alone Prescription Drug Plan (PDP) or Medicare Advantage plan with prescription drug coverage (MA-PD) when taking it up.
One aspect to be noted about the Part A and the Part B coverage is that it does not pay all the medical costs incurred by the policy owner. There are out-of-pocket payments that a person must be ready to pay such as premiums, deductibles and co-pays. The Part A coverage does not include all this, it comes under the Part B coverage, wherein payment are expected from the policy owner. A supplemental coverage called Medigap is available, which meets up on those parts that are let out of the Part A and Pat B coverage in Medicare. It is also possible for eligible candidates to get other governmental programs such as Medicaid to pay the premium and part or all of the costs relate to taking up a Medicare policy.
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