Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Medicare At 50: Some Promises Fulfilled But Program Still Faces Challenges
Los Angeles Times: How Medicare Fulfilled A President's Half-Century-Old Promise
Half a century after President Lyndon Johnson signed legislation creating Medicare and Medicaid with a pledge that seniors no longer would “be denied the healing miracle of modern medicine,” the promise has been largely fulfilled. The two entitlements – one for the elderly and one for low-income Americans - have kept generations of seniors in their homes and extended life-saving insurance protections to poor children and families. The share of uninsured seniors, which was 48% in 1962, is now less than 2%. (Levey, 7/29)
The New York Times: As Medicare And Medicaid Turn 50, Use Of Private Health Plans Surges
As Medicare and Medicaid reach their 50th anniversary on Thursday, the two vast government programs that insure more than one-third of Americans are undergoing a transformation that none of their original architects foresaw: Private health insurance companies are playing a rapidly growing role in both. (Pear, 7/29)
NPR: 50 Years Ago, Medicare Helped To Desegregate Hospitals
The law creating a national health insurance program for older Americans was signed in 1965 after a long political battle. Renee Montagne talks to Edith Mitchell of the National Medical Association. (7/30)
McClatchy: Medicare And Medicaid Face Growing Pains At Age 50
Fifty years ago on Thursday, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed legislation establishing the Medicare program to provide health coverage for seniors and the Medicaid program to cover the poor. But it was former President Harry S. Truman who, in Johnson’s words, “planted the seeds of compassion” that laid the groundwork for both federal programs. (Pugh, 7/29)
