In Medicare’s first year of coverage, poverty decreased by 66% among the senior population. From 1965, when Medicare was enacted, to 1994, life expectancy at age 65 increased nearly 3 full years. This was no coincidence. Access to Medicare coverage for those who were previously uninsured helped lift seniors out of poverty and extend their lives.
As with Social Security, workers would contribute with each paycheck toward their future Medicare benefits. Upon putting his signature on this new program, a keystone of the Great Society, President Johnson declared, “Every citizen will be able, in their productive years when they are earning, to insure themselves against the ravages of illness in old age.”
Medicare has been improved several times over the decades. In 1972, Americans with disabilities (under 65 years of age) became eligible for Medicare coverage — along with people suffering from chronic kidney disease needing dialysis or transplants. In 2003, prescription drug coverage was added to Medicare (though the program was prohibited from negotiating prices with drugmakers). The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 finally empowered Medicare to negotiate prices with Big Pharma — and lowered seniors’ costs by capping their out-of-pocket expenses for prescription drugs (including a $35 monthly cap on insulin).
Nearly sixty years after it was enacted, Medicare is one of the most popular and efficient federal programs. Ninety-four percent of beneficiaries say they are “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with their quality of care. Unlike many other federal programs, Medicare only spends 2% of its budget on administrative costs. Medicare isn’t perfect. It should be expanded to cover dental, hearing, and vision care.
The privatized version of the program, Medicare Advantage (MA), is gobbling up a larger share of the market despite myriad problems, including MA insurers overbilling the government and denying legitimate care. The Biden-Harris administration has been working to hold those private plans more accountable, but much remains to be done to protect traditional Medicare from efforts toward privatization.
Even after 59 years of Medicare’s overall success, we must continually defend Medicare against conservatives’ attempts to cut and privatize the program. Our founder, Congressman James Roosevelt, Sr. (son of President Franklin D. Roosevelt), knew that Medicare (along with Social Security) would need continuous advocacy to withstand assaults from antagonistic political forces. That’s why the word “preserve” is in our organization’s name.
Many conservatives opposed Medicare from the start, labeling it “socialism” and “socialized medicine.” In 1962, Ronald Reagan warned that if Medicare were to be enacted, “One of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children, and our children’s children, what it once was like in America when men were free.”
Today, the onslaught continues. The House Republican Study Committee’s (RSC) 2025 budget proposes to cut Medicare by an estimated $1 trillion over the next decade. The RSC would replace Medicare’s current reimbursement system with vouchers, and push seniors into private plans that can and do deny payment for services. Project 2025, the right-wing blueprint for a 2nd Trump presidency, would “gut” traditional Medicare as we know it, leaving only a privatized version that puts profits over patient care.
Democrats by and large support protecting and even expanding Medicare. President Biden tried to add dental, vision, and hearing coverage in his Build Back Better Act, but encountered resistance from Republicans and centrist Democrats. It’s still a laudable goal. Republicans, for the most part, advocate cutting Medicare benefits and privatization.
We endorsed Kamala Harris for President, because she knows the importance of Medicare to America’s seniors and people with disabilities — and has vowed to protect them. She has been in lock-step with President Biden, including his budget proposals to strengthen Medicare’s finances by demanding that the wealthy contribute their fair share. President Trump, on the other hand, has been rhetorically all over the map on this topic, telling CNBC he is “open” to “cutting entitlements” but claiming to support Medicare. (His budgets as president called for billions of dollars in Medicare cuts.)
The 59th anniversary of Medicare is both an occasion for celebrating the program’s enormous successes over the past six decades — and a time to defend Medicare in the marbled halls of Washington, DC, and at the ballot box this November.