BANGOR, Maine — This week Medicare reaches a milestone. The program will officially turn 50 on Thursday, and proponents are celebrating at events across the state and the country.
Amidst the fanfare, some are calling for improvements to Medicare, and even an expansion of the government program to cover all U.S. citizens.
Democratic congressional hopeful Emily Cain sponsored a Medicare birthday party at the Sylvia Ross Home in Bangor on Wednesday. Before indulging in some birthday cake, 72-year-old Diane Grandmaison addressed the party-goers.
"Have you ever heard that famous commercial, 'What's in Your Wallet?" she says.
Grandmaison, who is the vice president of the Maine Alliance for Retired Americans, says the most important card in her wallet is the red, white and blue Medicare card.
The vice president of Eastern Maine Health Care Systems, Lisa Harvey McPhearson, who was also at the party, agrees that Medicare is indispensable for the roughly 300,000 Mainers enrolled in the program.
"Without the Medicare benefit, every individual here, as well as thousands of Mainers, would be impoverished," she says.
In the lead-up to Medicare in the late 1950s and early '60s, some, including the American Medical Association, opposed what they saw as socialized medicine. Back then, the AMA launched Operation Coffee Cup, in which doctors' wives held coffee socials and urged attendees to write to Congress to oppose government-sponsored health care.
A half century later, the executive director of the Maine Association of Area Agencies on Aging, Jessica Maurer, says the program has dispelled many early detractors' fears.
"It's clearly worked, meaning our older adults are living considerably longer than anyone ever anticipated they would, and they are in good health, generally," she says.
That isn't to say Medicare couldn't stand some improvements. States provide extra financial support to Medicare enrollees with limited incomes who can't afford the program's out-of-pocket health expenses and premiums, and Maurer says the federal government should kick in more.
"And it really helps to keep them living well and long and in the community much longer," she says.
Others, such as the Maine Hospital Association, say while Medicare provides needed access to affordable insurance for millions of seniors, the program's low reimbursement rates are a challenge.
But Cokie Giles, a nurse at Eastern Maine Medical Center and president of Maine State Nurses Association, sees Medicare as one of the country's' greatest achievements — so much so that it should expand.
"Why we're celebrating it is we feel that everyone should have a single standard of care," she says. "We would like everybody to pay into Medicare, and everyone to receive it, young and old."
The Maine State Nurses Association and others will rally in Monument Square in Portland Thursday evening to support a federal bill introduced by Democratic Representative John Conyers of Michigan that would expand Medicare to cover all Americans.
Dr. Julie Pease of Maine AllCare, which advocates for universal health coverage, says Medicare is the right health coverage model to expand.
"Medicare is already working well," she says. "It's a good public-private partnership. Publicly funded, privately delivered. The system is already in place."
Barring universal coverage for all Americans, Robyn Merrill of Maine Equal Justice Partners says expanding Medicaid coverage would be an important step to increase access to health care for low-income Mainers.
But expanding that program is not favored by Gov. Paul LePage, who says despite federal reimbursement to do so, it will ultimately cost the state too much.
