Health Service Blues

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by SamIam

My bad for not going back and reveiwing my information. According to the latest info from the US Census (Press release of August 28, 2007), more than 30% and close to 40% of Americans do not have insurance through work. I think this is the statistic that lodged in my mind. At any rate, we still have 47 million Americans with no insurance at all. This is not a good situation, and according to the Census, the percentage of uninsured continues to climb.

As far as Mediciaid versus Medicare, the question is complicated because Medicaid is administered by the states with some federal guidelines. Thus, what Medicaid coverage will do for you can vary widely from state to state. Medicare is the same throughout the US, and administered strictedly by the Feds. Thus, I can say with some confidence that inflated hospital costs will also turn up as more charges to Medicare and Medicare premiums across the board. If someone has Medicaid in addition to Medicare, the two programs will share the costs, but again Medicaid is more variable in who get coverage and what gets paid, so if I'm going to generalize, I'd rather generalize about Medicare.

This is actually a rather dry topic. Do you guys always get so mad at each other over trivia?

Medicare is for old people, Medicaid is for poor people.