Medicare Insurance Info

By: Jamil Estorninos
Submitted: 2008-07-02 16:23:41
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When you need to avail of your Medicare benefits, the following information will come in handy.

Medicare is the nation’s largest health insurance for people age 65 or older, under age 65 with certain disabilities, and any age with End-Stage Renal Disease or permanent kidney failure requiring dialysis or a kidney transplant.

Eligibility for Medicare is not dependent upon your income. If you are 65 years of age or over, you are entitled to coverage. You also need not be a retiree to be eligible.

Medicare coverage

Medicare coverage is divided into four parts. It is best to acquaint yourself with them in order to get the most out of the Medicare benefits.

Part A (Hospital Insurance). It covers the following:

1. inpatient care in hospitals
2. inpatient stays in a skilled nursing facility
3. hospice care services
4. home health care services
5. inpatient care in a Religious Non-medical Health Care Institution

Part B (Medical Insurance). It covers medically-necessary services like doctors’ services and outpatient care. Part B also helps cover some preventive services to help maintain your health and to keep certain illnesses from getting worse.

Part C (Medicare Advantage Plans). This part combines Parts A and B and sometimes the prescription drug coverage as well, denominated as Part D.

Part D (Medicare Prescription Drug Coverage). It covers prescription drugs that may help lower prescription drugs costs and help protect against higher cost in the future.

Over 43 million people benefit from Medicare, which covers for items and services.

Program flaws

Claiming from the program is increasingly becoming difficult. It has been reported that the program’s hospital insurance trust fund could run out of money by 2018. “The trustees have made such projections in the past, but this one was bleaker than the outlook reported in 2005.”

The problem arises when the ratio of workers paying Medicare taxes to retirees drawing benefits is decreasing when the price of health care service per person is increasing. Currently there are 3.9 workers paying taxes into Medicare for every older American receiving service.

Critics said “part of the cost of Medicare is fraud, which government auditors estimate costs Medicare billions of dollars a year.” The Government Accountability Office listed Medicare as a "high-risk" government program where reforms are needed, “in part because of its vulnerability to fraud and partly because of its long-term financial problems.”

Surveys show that the public views Medicare’s problems as serious. One research center found 62 percent of the public said addressing Medicare’s financial problems should be a high priority for the government, but that still put it behind other priorities.

The surveys further suggest that there is no public consensus behind any specific strategy to keep the program solvent.

Despite such discouraging pronouncements, one cannot discount the need of Medicare Insurance coverage. In the United States, 44% of senior citizens were uninsured. Now, it was down to 1%. Before the implementation of the program, 29% of senior citizens lived in poverty, now it was down to 10%.

For further help and assistance about your Medicare Insurance coverage, visit the Medicare official website or consult your Medicare Insurance lawyer.

Article source: Expert Articles