Medicare
- Broadridge Content
Medicare is a federal health insurance program created in 1965 to help pay medical costs incurred by people over the age of 65, people with certain disabilities, and people with end-stage renal disease. Coverage consisted of two parts: Part A (hospital insurance) and Part B (medical insurance). These parts together are known as Original Medicare. The 1997 Balanced Budget Act created Part C (originally called Medicare + Choice) to allow private companies to offer Medicare benefits as well as benefits not offered by Medicare. In 2003, the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act, the first major revision of the Medicare program since its creation, was signed into law. It preserved and strengthened the original plan, and offered important new prescription drug (Medicare Part D) and preventive benefits, as well as extra help to people with low incomes.
