Dear Colleague:
This summer marks the 40th year since the enactment of Medicare, the landmark health care program for the nation’s most vulnerableāthe elderly, frail, and disabled. For the past decade, the Fund’s Program on Medicare’s Future has focused on the experience of beneficiaries, evaluating how new policies or emerging trends affect their coverage and access to care. In conjunction with the program’s anniversary, we are pleased to offer a new Medicare Resources page, a collection of selected Fund research on some of the program’s current challenges, including implementation of the new drug benefit, a restructured managed care program, and growing pressure to improve the quality of care while controlling costs.
Check this page again next week for a link to a webcast of a July 26th event at the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation conference center in Washington, D.C., noting the 40th anniversary of enactment of the laws establishing both Medicare and Medicaid, the jointly funded federal-state program that helps states provide medical assistance to low-income individuals and families. This historic event will include remarks from a half-dozen former Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA)/Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) administrators, former Health, Education, and Welfare Secretary Joseph A. Califano, Jr., and other health policy experts, including Kaiser President Drew Altman and Fund President Karen Davis. Also on the 26th, Health Affairs, in collaboration with the event’s co-sponsors, will publish several perspective articles by former HCFA/CMS administrators.