Medicare and Medicaid at 50: Time to include “US” all

On Thursday, July 30, Medicare and Medicaid turned 50 years old. The anniversary was marked by an event held at the Truman Library in Independence, MO, which I attended. Why there? In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed those bills (officially Titles XVIII and XIX of the Social Security Act) there, in the presence of former President Truman and his wife Bess, who received cards #1 and #2. The location was chosen for its symbolism even in 1965, because Truman had fought for a national health insurance system and lost. Nearly 20 years later, Johnson honored his legacy by signing these two major bills (also opposed by the AMA) in his library. Both presidents thought that this was a down-payment on the national health insurance system that was sure to come soon. But it took another 45 years to pass the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and we still don’t have universal health insurance, and ACA and even Medicare are under constant attack. At least now it is not the AMA that is the active opposition.

This event was not the first held at the Truman Library to remember that day. Seven years ago, a group of single-payer activists organized a 43^rd anniversary celebration there, both to commemorate the signing and to call for a universal health insurance system. That event was less “official” but more passionate, with talks by both local KC Congressman Emanuel Cleaver II and Rep. John Conyers of Michigan. Rep. Conyers’ first year in Congress was 1965, the year Medicare and Medicaid passed, and all those years later he was still vital and still in Congress and was the sponsor of HR 676, the national single payer bill. This year’s event had more of the feel of an administration press conference with several federal and Missouri bureaucrats speaking. Some of talks, including those by Truman’s grandson Clifton Truman Daniel and former Missouri state rep and insurance commissioner Scott Lakin, were good, but only one had any real passion. That was given by Bridget McCandless, MD, the CEO of the Health Care Foundation of Greater Kansas City (HCFGKC), which sponsored the event.

There is a reason for that. Before taking the reins of HCF, a “conversion” foundation established with the money that came from the sale of a group of not-for-profit hospitals to for-profit HCA, Dr. McCandless, a self-described “Independence girl”, was the medical director of the Jackson County Free Health Clinic in Independence, caring for the many people in that area who could not otherwise access excellent health service. She cared for people who had little, whose lives, in Dr. Camara Jones’ metaphor (most recently discussed in Racism and the Social Determinants of Equity: Camara Jones at Beyond Flexner 2015, April 19, 2015), were lived on the edge of the cliff before they even got sick. Dr. McCandless’ clinic provided a safety net that prevented many people from falling to the ground below. The “lucky” ones were those who were old enough (or disabled enough) to qualify for Medicare, and poor-plus-something enough to qualify for Medicaid. For those people, these federal programs, which now cover about 30% of Americans were indeed life savers.

Dr. McCandless, whose foundation is committed to funding programs that help the underserved and uninsured (the exceptional founding CEO, Steve Roling, was in the audience), talked, as did other speakers, about the difference that Medicare had made in the lives of seniors; before it they (and their families) lived their retirement years in financial fear of sickness. But her passion really showed when talking about Medicaid, originally seen as a means of providing access to health care for the poor. You certainly have to be poor to receive Medicaid, very poor in many states including Missouri, but that is not sufficient. She told us that you have to be “poor and”. Poor and pregnant, poor and the mother of small children, poor and disabled, poor and in a nursing home, poor and – and the tears rolled down her cheeks – a child. ACA was intended to expand this federal-state collaboration to encompass all the “just” poor (with the exception of those who are undocumented), but Missouri, and Kansas, the other state in the Kansas City metropolitan area, are among the states that have not done so.  Dr. McCandless eloquently expressed her hope that our states would rise to the need, that our legislators and leaders would rise to the decency, to remove the “and” by expanding Medicaid.

While it is possible that Missouri, and Kansas, and the other states that have taken advantage of the 2012 Supreme Court decision (National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius), that otherwise upheld the ACA, to not expand Medicaid will still do so, it is unconscionable that they have not yet, that they have left so many people who could now be accessing health care uncovered. It is a land-office business for the safety net clinics in the area, like Dr. McCandless’ former practice, but it is a volume that they can barely care for. When people get very sick, and show up in the Emergency Department and get admitted to the hospital, those hospitals bear the brunt of care without payment, but even their usually powerful lobbies have so far not been successful.

The opposition to this expansion, the opposition to ACA, and even threats to Medicare are often said to be politically driven, but they are ideologically driven. They are driven by the agendas of billionaire elitists, most of whom have never known any hardship. They have been able to further expand their already-considerable influence as a result of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, and blithely fund the election of their minions to state houses and legislatures.  The New York Times on Aug 2, 2015 documents that fewer than 400 families have contributed the almost half the money in this election cycle. Former Oklahoma football coach Barry Switzer once said that many of the privileged were “born on third base and think they’ve hit a triple” (although most of these billionaires were actually born within arm’s length of home plate!). Indeed, they have no empathy; they are selfish and mean. Their minions, who enjoy the power their sponsors’ money provides for them, must be (if they are not truly stupid) also mean, but actually are not fiscally prudent; not funding health care for our people costs us a lot. Medicare already covers our most costly ill (they are old; this is why raising the age for Medicare eligibility to 67 or 68 will save little money). It is way past time for it to cover the rest of us.

Rep Jim McDermott of Washington, a physician and long-time single-payer advocate, has introduced the American Health Security Act of 2015, which will authorize and provide federal funds to support single-payer programs developed by states. It should be passed, but it probably won’t be while we have a Congress bought and paid for by the rich mean selfish people. We have had single-payer bills in Congress before, Rep. Conyers’ and before that Rep. Ron Dellums’. It is time to pass them. We need to go beyond the ACA, we need to make sure states expand Medicaid and take the “and” out of the “poor and” for eligibility. But we need to go farther.

For 50 years Medicare has been literally a life-saver for our seniors. Now we need to expand it to include everyone. Everybody in, nobody out!