Medicare Birthday

On July 30, 1965, at a public ceremony in Independence, MO., President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed Medicare into law. Moments later, the 36th president of the United States presented America's 33rd president, Harry S. Truman, then 81 years old — the nation's first Medicare card.
Medicare provides health insurance to Americans age 65 and older and to younger people with certain disabilities or health conditions. At its creation, Medicare consisted of two parts: Medicare Part A hospital insurance coverage and Medicare Part B, an optional medical insurance program.

Medicare's first beneficiaries paid a $40 annual deductible for Part A. The monthly premium for Part B was $3.

Medical Paperwork

A PricewaterhouseCoopers study for the American Hospital Association chronicled more than 40 layers of paperwork associated with caring for a typical Medicare patient who arrives at an emergency room with a broken hip and receives treatment until recuperation. Some of the findings:

• Roughly 60 minutes of paperwork were performed for every hour of emergency department care, 36 minutes of paperwork for every hour of surgery and acute inpatient care, 30 minutes of paperwork for every hour of skilled nursing care, and 48 minutes of paperwork for every hour of home healthcare.
• “Each time a physician orders a test or a procedure, the physician documents the order in the patient’s record, and the government requires additional documentation to prove the necessity for the test or procedure.”
• “Many forms … must be completed daily by clinical staff to submit to the government to justify the care provided to skilled nursing facility patients.”
• Medicare and Medicaid “rules and instructions” are more than 130,000 pages (three times larger than the IRS code and its associated regulations), and “medical records must be reviewed by at least four people to ensure compliance” with Medicare program requirements.
• “A Medicare patient arriving at the emergency department is required to review and sign eight different forms, just for Medicare.”
• “Each time a patient is discharged, even if only from the acute unit of the hospital to an on-site skilled nursing unit, multiple care providers must write a discharge plan for the patient. This documentation, as long as 30 pages, applies to all patients, regardless of the complexity of care received within the hospital or required post-hospital setting.”
• In addition to regulation by state agencies, local agencies, private accrediting organizations, and insurers, hospitals are regulated by more 30 federal agencies.

Care by the Numbers

Medicaid and Medicare are similar programs that are publicly run. They cover 62 million and 43 million Americans, respectively. They each use their large membership to negotiate lower prices with hospitals and doctors. Medicaid tends to have the lowest payment rates. On average, Medicaid pays 66 percent of what Medicare pays doctors.

Incidentally, US Census Bureau as of 2015 shows population of about 318 million Americans, including 23 million non-citizens.

1965 Inventions Plus

The Kennedy half dollar came out that year and contained 60% copper. An uncirculated one is worth about four dollars today. The artificial Aspartame came out in 1965. It came under attack as causing cancer, but the claims were debunked and it is now considered safe. Astroturf hit the ground in 1965 and is still around. Kevlar was invented that year and is still protecting us from the bad guys. Basic, the computer programming language was developed in 1965. The 'Big Bang' theory was developed in 1965 and the Nobel prize in science was awarded its discoverer. Some say the internet was developed in 1965, but it was really conceived, much like its current form in 1968.

On Palm Sunday, April, 1965 fifty one tornadoes hit around the Southern US, causing tremendous damage.Medicare was created by Lyndon Johnson. the Maple Leaf became the official Flag symbol for Canada. The Gateway arch in St. Louis was completed. Warren Buffet takes over Berkshire Hathaway and the stock price was $18 per share.  No, the pencil was invented in Switzerland in 1565, not 1965.