The Medicare Modernization Act Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

The Medicare Modernization Act - Essay Example When it comes to income that means those who are living from hand to mouth are unable to benefit from the Act. In order to analyze whether it is a step forward or backward, let us discuss the significance of MMA in the light of its pros and cons to the U.S citizens: Medicare initially was not considered among the major concerns of American national politics 3. First, there was the targeting of Medicare expenditures, which federal officials regularly forecasted to raise over the 1990s, as a way to reduce the federal budget deficit. That issue momentarily heated up the debate between the Bush and Clinton campaigns when Budget Director Richard Darman claimed in July 1992 that Medicare outlays would have to be drastically reduced if the budget deficit were to be substantially lowered. The other set of political issues involved the emergent politics of universal health insurance in the early 1990s both the realization that an extraordinary consensus had emerged about the need for far-reaching change and the presumption that, if elected, Clinton aimed to act on that consensus 4. The context for the 1997 Medicare changes reflected two long-term forces at work in American politics. One element was the wearing down of the faith in government and ameliorative social programs that had been central to Medicare's birth in the heyday of the Great Society. The second was a form of fiscal politics that emphasized the consequences of the aging of the baby boomers, particularly the budgetary strain they would put on both Medicare and Social Security in the years ahead 5. Medicare - The most costly Program Medicare makes up the largest proportion of income-assistance spending. The cost of medical benefits has risen by more than the cost of other programs since the 1970s. It is said and often considered that certain social insurance and welfare health programs raise the greatest number of people out of scarcity, especially among the elderly and retired. The success of such programs can be determined by the historical acceptance of such Acts like the Food Stamp Act in 1964 and Medicare and Medicaid in 1965, which provided health insurance for the needy and poor 6. In the early 1990s, once again there felt a need to change the existing plans and policies regarding health and medication, so certain health welfare and food stamp programs arrive but at a smaller scale. The main reason for requiring such policies was the dissatisfaction with the then welfare programs and policies. Bill Clinton, who had vowed to "end welfare as we know it" in his 1992 campaign, helped do just that, signing a bipartisan bill in 1996, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) 7. This was a dramatic and controversial measure that brought an end to six decades of federal social policy guaranteeing at least a minimum level of aid to those in poverty. The measure abolished AFDC and replaced it with a system of smaller grants to states, which established rules of eligibility but were required to end welfare to