Medicare & Medicaid Benefits
Medicare is a national health insurance program in the United States, begun in 1966 under the Social Security Administration and now administered by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
It provides health insurance for Americans aged 65 and older. It also provides health insurance to younger people with some disability status as determined by the Social Security Administration, as well as people with end-stage renal disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
Medicare is funded by a combination of a payroll tax, beneficiary premiums and surtaxes from beneficiaries, and general U.S. Treasury revenue.
In 2017, Medicare provided health insurance for over 58 million individuals—more than 49 million people aged 65 and older and about 9 million younger people. On average, Medicare covers about half of the healthcare expenses of those enrolled.
The enrollees then almost always cover their remaining costs either with additional insurance or by joining a Medicare health plan. No matter which of those two options they choose or if they choose to do nothing extra (very rare) beneficiaries have out of pocket (OOP) costs.