Yep. History is always good. Politifact reminisces about healthcare for Seniors before Medicare. Turns out it was kinda shitty...especially if you needed to stay in a hospital room.
I wish Repulicans had the courage to run on this platform (for Democrats' sake)
Ah, the gold ole days !
"In all, slightly more than half of Americans 65 and older had health insurance at the end of 1962. That works out to 64 percent of couples, 49 percent of un-married women and 37 percent of un-married men.
"And what they had was terrible insurance -- it didn’t do much to cover them," said
Dorothy Pechman Rice, a retired professor at the University of California at San Francisco who served as director of the National Center for Health Statistics from 1976 to 1982.
The study found that nine out of 10 couples, and eight out of 10 elderly individuals, "assumed responsibility for their own costs without help from government sources or private voluntary agencies." Some paid from their own savings or with the help of insurance, and some could pay "only because doctors or hospitals adjusted their rates in light of the patient’s limited resources."
Depending on the marital category, between 18 and 26 percent of seniors without health insurance relied on public assistance to pay some of the costs they incurred. The report concluded that such rates were "evidence of the fact that many of the aged simply cannot afford a hospital stay."
Indeed, the biggest distinction the surveyors found was between elderly patients who needed to be hospitalized and those who didn’t. For instance, in a year without hospitalization, married couples incurred median medical costs of $173, or $1,289 in today’s dollars. In contrast, a year with at least one hospitalization meant incurring median costs of $938, or just short of $7,000 in today’s money.
In other words, in the pre-1965 era, if you had to go to the hospital, the hospital may not have turned you down -- but if you were in the sizable percentage of Americans who had to pay all or much of the costs out of pocket, you’d be paying for your misfortune for years to come."
I wish Repulicans had the courage to run on this platform (for Democrats' sake)
Ah, the gold ole days !
"In all, slightly more than half of Americans 65 and older had health insurance at the end of 1962. That works out to 64 percent of couples, 49 percent of un-married women and 37 percent of un-married men.
"And what they had was terrible insurance -- it didn’t do much to cover them," said
Dorothy Pechman Rice, a retired professor at the University of California at San Francisco who served as director of the National Center for Health Statistics from 1976 to 1982.
The study found that nine out of 10 couples, and eight out of 10 elderly individuals, "assumed responsibility for their own costs without help from government sources or private voluntary agencies." Some paid from their own savings or with the help of insurance, and some could pay "only because doctors or hospitals adjusted their rates in light of the patient’s limited resources."
Depending on the marital category, between 18 and 26 percent of seniors without health insurance relied on public assistance to pay some of the costs they incurred. The report concluded that such rates were "evidence of the fact that many of the aged simply cannot afford a hospital stay."
Indeed, the biggest distinction the surveyors found was between elderly patients who needed to be hospitalized and those who didn’t. For instance, in a year without hospitalization, married couples incurred median medical costs of $173, or $1,289 in today’s dollars. In contrast, a year with at least one hospitalization meant incurring median costs of $938, or just short of $7,000 in today’s money.
In other words, in the pre-1965 era, if you had to go to the hospital, the hospital may not have turned you down -- but if you were in the sizable percentage of Americans who had to pay all or much of the costs out of pocket, you’d be paying for your misfortune for years to come."
