Medicare is Here to Stay
July 30, 2014
By Gerald Tilley
Social Security Dist. Manager Decatur
Medicare went into effect 48 years ago on July 1, 1966. Earlier that same year, Medicare workers went door to door trying to get seniors to sign up. Medicare was not the cornerstone then that it is today, and people did not know whether it was going to work for the long haul.
Now, nearly half a century later, Medicare remains one of the most popular government programs in the nation.
We can’t see the future, but one thing’s for sure: Medicare is here to stay. Medicare provides health insurance to more than 50 million Americans. Forty-two million are people age 65 and older and the other eight million are younger and have disabilities.