Medicare

p 5 MEDICARE REFORM 2003 In November 2003 , the United States Congress passed a controversial health policy bill that President George W . Bush signed into law . The new legislation makes the most far-reaching changes to Medicare since the program was created in 1965 . The changes to Medicare were necessary because the Medicare program currently is not at par with the improvements that the US healthcare system has incorporated . Such disparity between Medicare and the enhanced healthcare system resulted in a deficiency of choices and benefits that may be provided to Medicare

enrollees . It is known that Medicare provides healthcare assistance to millions of Americans nationwide and such disparity has tremendously affected a significant portion of its members . The 1965-born Medicare was determined not to offer any out-patient prescription drug benefit which in turn obliges the senior-age enrollees not to take their much needed medicines . In addition , the old Medicare program does not give full coverage for essential preventive healthcare services , including cancer or diabetes monitoring hence the almost 50 year old health program is definitely unable to shield its enrollees from any uncontrollable costs of medical services . These costly measures often affect seniors because major medical services often exhaust all of the savings of the seniors

The main provisions of the new legislation included several tenets for Medicare reform (Kelly , 2007 . Firstly , the new legislation describes that all senior citizens must have the opportunity to a fully-financed prescription drug benefit . Secondly , the modern Medicare program must offer a superior coverage programs for preventive care and any serious illness . In addition , members of the Medicare health program must be given the choice of maintaining the original health plan at no cost Also , the reformed Medicare program should offer improved health insurance options , similar to the options that are provided to employees of the federal government . The new legislation also describes a financially stable and consolidated Medicare program . The reformation of the Medicare program also includes a reinforced management system that is able to augment healthcare of seniors . The reformation also describes that regulations and administrative operations are constantly updated and reorganized , including the control and abolishment of fraud and abuse of the benefits of the Medicare program . The new legislation also asserts a superior quality of health care provision for senior citizens . All these new features associated with the reformation of the Medicare program had costed the government 400 billion that will be spent for the improvement of the program for the next 10 years

The direct result of such new legislation of the Medicare program is that senior citizens receive prescription drug coverage , which includes procurement of the medications that they need , without any imposition from the government as to which brand of drug they will purchase . The reform with also result in the availability of choices of an individual healthcare plan that the Medicare beneficiary may pick out , based on his personal decision , if he thinks that a particular healthcare plan is able to provide their specific needs (Schulke et...