Defending Quality Healthcare - Medicaid and Medicare

Medicaid provides healthcare for almost 44.7 million low income or disabled individuals and families across the United States. The program became law in 1965, and is jointly funded by the Federal and State governments. 

Medicaid is now the largest source of funding for medical and health-related services for people with limited income. In New York State, Medicaid provides healthcare coverage to approximately 2.8 million of the State’s most vulnerable citizens, including low-income children as well as elderly and disabled individuals. In Massachusetts and Maryland, Medicaid covers 806,000 and 433,000 respectively.

For many healthcare providers (including hospitals, nursing homes and home care agencies) Medicaid is a major source of ongoing revenue.

Medicare, the national health insurance program for people age 65 or older (as well as some people under age 65 with disabilities such as permanent kidney failure) also became law in 1965.  For most retired Americans, it is their only source of health insurance. 

Currently, 2.2 million elderly New Yorkers depend on Medicare as their primary source of health insurance, as do 737,000 Massachusetts residents and 611,000 Maryland residents.

As healthcare costs continue to rise, more must be done to protect healthcare for working families.   Decreasing healthcare funding over time is not the solution.  In an already financially fragile healthcare system, cuts to Medicaid and Medicare only erode quality and impede access to critical healthcare. They force hospitals and nursing homes to cut back services, curtail essential programs, and lay off key healthcare workers.  Moreover, by denying families coverage, more illnesses will go untreated resulting in more emergency room visits and hospital stays that ultimately raises healthcare costs for everyone.

To see what you can do to stop healthcare cuts, please visit http://www.putfamiliesfirst.org.