Medicare Benefits for the Elderly: Research Paper

Yet, the working class poor elderly person (officially defined as such by the U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics (2011) who, despite working 27 weeks or more -- tedious heard labor- and around the clock still show income that are at, or below, the official poverty threshold) in particular have the most difficult situation since they do not reach Poverty Guidelines that are defined by the U.S. Department of Health and Human services (HHS) for classifying poor individuals and for determining federal program eligibility (U.S. Department of Health and Human services, 2011), but, on the other hand, they are too poor to afford that insurance. These individuals may not qualify for assistance. In other words, it is the very elderly who are no longer able to work who receive Medicare, whilst those who may need it as much, or even more, (since they lack the resources), are by a crippled definition of poor, delimited from receiving that aid.

Most of all, since Medicare drives itself to benefiting the elderly the younger population have the increasingly steep burden of compensating for health care cost and lost income, as well as housing needs that will support this larger and growing population of elderly individuals. This is particularly so since the cost of insurance keeps mounting with new technology and prescription drugs as well as labor costs increasing it. Fewer elderly are barely able to afford Medicare. It is the younger population who is expected to fund the money as tax returns particularly so since Medicare does little to hold down the costs.

The problems of access to Medicare with certain swathes of the population (due to living in remote areas, being illiterate, or for other reasons) being less able to receive their needed insurance than other has also recently sparked calls for reform to modify these situations.This will likewise transfer the burden to a younger population.

Similarly will be endeavors to improve quality of health care: It is said that there is a disproportionate quality of treatment in those who can afford health care and in the specialty of physicians that provide it, as well as America's emphasis on sickness rather than on health and the quantity of medical procedures that it provides any one single individual which inevitably raises the amount of error in quality of healthcare. Obama's attempts to redress this problem will only increase taxpayer's money, possibly reinforcing the quality of care of the elderly population whilst impacting, or ignoring the quality of health care that the younger population should concurrently receive.

Hence, Medicare whilst aiming to help the elderly poor is, simultaneously, robbing the struggling young and/or victimizing other equally needy individuals.

References

Brooking Institute (2008). Meeting the Dilemma of Health Care Access. Opportunity 08: A Project of the Brookings Institution. Retrieved on 9/4/2011from:

http://www.opportunity08.org/Files/FD.ashx?guid=98a417e5-5972-4031-b361-e11e00981f55

Bhattacharya, Jay, & Lakdawalla, D. (2006). Does Medicare Benefit the Poor. Retrieved from Journal of Public Economics 90(1-2): 277-292. http://healthpolicy.usc.edu/docs/lakdawalla/does%20medicare.pdf

Chaikind, H. (July, 2008). Medicare Secondary Payer- Coordination of Benefits. Retrieved from: http://aging.senate.gov/crs/medicare11.pdf

Cubanski, J., Kaiser, H.J., & Neuman, T. (January, 2011). Medicare Policy. Retrieved from http://www.kff.org/medicare/upload/8169.pdf......