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Charles Gaba

📣 FLASHBACK: With everyone once again up in arms (literally, in one case) over how insanely expensive & dysfunctional the U.S. healthcare system is over the past week, here's a reminder of how "simple" it was to vastly expand Medicare back in 1988:

acasignups.net/24/12/10/flashb

ACA Signups · FLASHBACK: Here's how "simple" it was to expand Medicare in 1988Originally published 3/30/18; updated 12/10/24 with figures adjusted for enrollment growth & inflation through 2024. Whenever the discussion of what the next Big Move for healthcare policy should be comes up in Democratic/progressive circles, the incredibly difficult path which had to be paved to get the Affordable Care Act passed in 2009-2010 is often brought up as an example of how difficult it is to make even minor changes, much less major ones. That gets a bit repetitive after awhile, however, so here's another excellent case study from 20 years earlier: The Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act of 1988. Thanks to Amy Lotven for this trip down memory lane via the New York Times: Retreat in Congress; The Catastrophic-Care Debacle - A special report.; How the New Medicare Law Fell on Hard Times in a Hurry With the benefit of hindsight, legislators and policy makers in both parties now agree that the seeds of disaster for the Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act were sown well before it became law barely a year ago. Rarely has a Government program that promised so much to so many fallen apart so fast.