47 Years LATER , MEDICARE and MEDICAID Are FINANCIAL DISASTERS ..?

This Monday, July 30, 2012 will mark the 47th anniversary of the enactment of Medicare and Medicaid. On that day in 1965, President Lyndon Johnson journeyed to Independence, Missouri to sign the enabling legislation in the presence of former President Harry Truman. It was the dawn of "The Great Society" and the American nanny state.

Financially, it's been downhill ever since.

Medicare was designed to provide medical services to those over the age of 65. Medicaid was designed to provide financial assistance to the poorest among us who can't otherwise afford medical services. From the inception of these programs, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement have dominated their operation. 

President Lyndon B. Johnson promised that Medicare would cost about $500 million a year - yes, million. He even said that if costs went higher, then he was going to look like the “worst kind of damn fool.” Just a year later, in 1966, the House Ways and Means Committee estimated that Medicare would cost about $12 billion a year by 1990. The actual 1990 cost was $107 billion - off by an order of magnitude but close enough for government work. And that’s when costs really took off. By 2008, annual costs hit $599 billion and the program for the first time went into deficit-spending mode.

47 Years Later, Medicare and Medicaid Are Financial Disasters: CLICK FOR  MORE..