Medicare’s 60th Anniversary and Update

Between the new Administration’s staffing cuts and worries about benefit cuts, there’s a lot to think about as Medicare approaches its 60^th anniversary.

Medicare is health insurance for people 65 and older. There are nearly 68 million seniors and disabled Americans enrolled in Medicare, or nearly 20% of the U.S. population.

Your two options when you sign up are Original Medicare and Medicare Advantage. Medicare Advantage is an alternative offered by private health care companies approved by Medicare.

Level of Service

“We’re kind of uncertain on the servicing side,” says Steve Parrish, Professor of Practice and a Scholar in Residence at the American College Cary M. Maguire Center for Ethics in Financial Services. “We know, for example, that Social Security lost a lot of people in the last few months, and so levels of service have been documented to be down. I have not heard anecdotally about that happening yet with (Medicare). But that’s certainly the fear a lot of us have.

“It’s fine Medicare keeps paying, but are you going to get the service you need to be able to manage your claims and all that kind of thing? Again, I not really heard anything that’s tangible, whereas with Social Security, just for comparison, we’re definitely hearing that. They closed six offices, and that kind of thing.”

“Medicare can be complicated. And I have various different clients, ranging from those that are blue collar workers and don’t have a clue how that works,” says health care consultant Lisa Humes, “And I have very well-educated people who still don’t understand the rules about Medicare. So, if it’s not your normal business or something that it’s associated with it, it can be confusing, and it’s good to have some direction from a trusted professional that can help guide you down the path to the right products and when to sign up at the appropriate time.”

Want more information about Medicare and don’t know where to go? Check out Senior Planet’s 7/21 webinar on Navigating Medicare Resources Online. Please note this is not a class on how to apply for Medicare, but on how to find info online about Medicare.

Vaccines

“So, if vaccines suddenly aren’t as approved by the current administration as they were before, does that mean that we’ll soon be hearing that Medicare will not cover preventative vaccines, things that they’ve been doing for a very long time?” Parrish asks. “That hasn’t really shown up yet, but that’s certainly coming.”

Medicare Advantage

Fifty-four percent of Medicare recipients have chosen Medicare Advantage plans. Those plans are popular because they generally are lower cost, all-inclusive plans. They also include vision and dental benefits, which are excluded from Original Medicare coverage.

But the complaints have been piling up on Medicare Advantage, the privately managed options for Medicare. “We are getting a lot of reports of consumer complaints because people are having to get second or third opinions and what otherwise would be considered a covered item is not being covered by some of these in Medicare Advantage,” Parrish says.

Meanwhile, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. is a big fan of the plans and says he is covered by one himself.

But Parrish says the big debate coming.  “You have some saying that Medicare Advantage is a good thing, and I think largely because it’s somewhat privatized, whereas others on both sides of the aisle have been complaining about Medicare Advantage because it’s costly to the government, and you’re just racking up more and more complaints from consumers about having to go through the multiple opinions and then not getting covered.

‘So that’s clearly a debate that’s brewing, and I’m not sure it’s so much Republican vs, Democrat as people worried about consumer issues versus others saying this is a good way to get the government out of it.”

Insolvency?

The annual Trustee report predicts that the fund underpinning Medicare will be insolvent in 2033 if no action is taken to shore up its finances.

“As in prior years, we found that the Social Security and Medicare programs both continue to face significant financing issues,” the Treasury said in a summary of the reports.

“People like me are on Medicare, and there’s going to be more people like me as a Baby Boomer, and as you know the U.S., and the global birth rate, is way down,” says Parrish. “So you have less workers coming in to support more elderly people who, by the way, are having longer life expectancies. So, it’s not at all surprising that Medicare is going to suffer just because of the demographic shifts.”

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Rodney A. Brooks is an award-winning journalist and author. The former Deputy Managing Editor/Money at USA TODAY, his retirement columns appear in U.S. News & World Report and Senior Planet.com. He has also written for National Geographic, The Washington Post and USA TODAY and has testified before the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging. His book, “The Rise & Fall of the Freedman’s Bank, And Its Lasting Socio-economic Impact on Black America” was released in 2024. He is also author of the book “Fixing the Racial Wealth Gap.” His website is www.rodneyabrooks.com

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