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Medicare is intended to benefit seniors, younger people with specific disabilities, and people with end stage renal disease. The history of Medicare began decades ago in 1945, then President Harry Truman had a vision that Americans should have affordable health care. He fought for the idea, but it was an idea before its time. Medicare is a health care insurance program which put simply is overseen by the United State Federal Government. Today the chain of acronyms which oversee Medicare leads to Health and Human Services, HHS, the Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services, CMS.

Back in 1945 Truman was accused of being a socialist. Today in 2010, President Obama is being accused of advocating socialized medicine. Indeed there are socialistic aspects of a government dictating that all its people must have medicine.

Twenty years after Truman’s efforts for affordable health care for all, in 1965 President Lyndon Johnson signed the Medicare and Medicaid law. Medicaid is a related program that provides assistance to very low income or indigent people. Johnson’s efforts actually were subsequent to those of the assassinated, John F. Kennedy.

Over the 45 years since its inception, Medicare has been revised several times. There were ancillary services added in 1972, such as speech therapy and physical therapy. Also in 1972 Medicare began to provide some payment benefits to patients’ health maintenance organizations.

As medicine progressed and made science prolonged lives, Medicare reacted by adding benefits for hospice care in 1982. However, a few years later in 1989, other benefits were repealed. Medicare no longer included catastrophic care and prescription drugs. This came as a rude awakening to elderly patients who could not afford the high cost of prescription drugs.

As one would expect, the cost of Medicare has increased over the years. In 1945 the monthly premium for Part B, health care coverage, was a mere $3. The same coverage is now $96.40 monthly. Add the cost of hospital premiums, Part A, ranging from $254 to $461 to the cost of Part B. Medicare has co-pay and carve-outs that add to the patients’ costs. There is also a difference between the amount of money that Medicare pays for services and the amount that is charged by hospitals and skilled nursing facilities. Often, patients have to make up the difference out of their own pockets.

Anyone receiving Medicare is forced to review the program very carefully to understand how it works with their personal health insurance. The divided responsibility of State versus Federal governments adds to the complexity, leaving some Medicare beneficiaries overwhelmed and confused.

Today, President Truman’s vision has become President Obama’s reality. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is law, but it will take years for it all to go into effect. There will be unintended consequences, some good, some bad. The Act is 906 pages long. Can anyone really understand all of the law’s provisions? In theory, Americans may not want more people to equal more government. In reality, more government for America’s ever growing population seems to be an unavoidable fact. Can America afford Obama’s affordable health care act? The history of Medicare will continue to develop. Its level of socialism has yet to be determined.

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