Join us to celebrate the 50th Birthday of Medicare.

Centennial Room, Louisville Free Public Library, 301 York St., Louisville, KY

 Here are a few good things the public may not know about Medicare.

In addition to bringing health care coverage to seniors and later to the disabled and those in kidney failure, Medicare desegregated our hospitals, reduced infant mortality, and funded physician residency programs.

1. Medicare As A Catalyst For Reducing Health Disparities

June Eichner and Bruce C. Vladeck

http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/full/24/2/365

As the nation’s largest purchaser and regulator of health care, Medicare is positioned to be a leader in reducing racial and ethnic health disparities. Its leverage was demonstrated in 1966—the year of Medicare’s inception—when hospitals desegregated as a condition for receiving Medicare reimbursement. Since then, Medicare has contributed to dramatic improvement in the health of the elderly and disabled minority population, although disparities between minority and white beneficiaries remain….

2. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, Hospital Desegregation and Black Infant Mortality in Mississippi
   Douglas V. Almond, Kenneth Y. Chay, and Michael Greenstone

   March 2008

http://qed.econ.queensu.ca/paper/chay.pdf

The gains in black access to hospitals coincide with a striking reduction in black post-neonatal death for causes considered preventable with timely hospital care. The location and timing of the racial convergence across Mississippi’s counties correspond with when their hospitals received certification for reimbursement from the Medicare program, which required compliance with Title VI. We calculate that this came at a small increase in costs to Mississippi’s hospitals and conclude that the financial incentives of Medicare were crucial to achieving hospital desegregation.

3. Medicare’s role in funding residency programs in teaching hospitals

See article by Suzanne Sataline and Shirley S. Wan,  Wall Street Journal-Health, April 12, 2010  http://tinyurl.com/2w8kzke

“There are about 110,000 resident positions in the U.S., according to the AAMC. Teaching hospitals rely heavily on Medicare funding to pay for these slots. In 1997, Congress imposed a cap on funding for medical residencies, which hospitals say has increasingly hurt their ability to expand the number of positions.

Medicare pays $9.1 billion a year to teaching hospitals, which goes toward resident salaries and direct teaching costs, as well as the higher operating costs associated with teaching hospitals, which tend to see the sickest and most costly patients.

Doctors’ groups and medical schools had hoped that the new health-care law, passed in March, would increase the number of funded residency slots, but such a provision didn’t make it into the final bill.”

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