Medicare & Medicaid

As the programs turn 50, Medicare and Medicaid's long role in funding medical education is finding itself stretched thin by looming nursing and physician shortages.

The NOTICE Act would require hospitals to provide written notification to patients 24 hours after receiving observation care, explaining that they have not been admitted to the hospital, the reasons why and the potential financial implications.

Medicare Part D prescription drug plan premiums will hold flat at $32.50 a month in 2016, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced on Wednesday, despite ballooning costs for the federal program.

The 25-bed Cochise Regional Hospital in Douglas, Arizona, is set to close at the end of July, after Medicare took the rare action of cutting off funding based on findings from several compliance and safety investigations.

U.S. healthcare spending is expected to grow by 5.8 percent through 2024, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said on Tuesday, driven by the rise of expensive specialty drugs and higher insured rates under the Affordable Care Act.

At the same time, enrollment in Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program is just under 72 million.

Medicare and the healthcare system it helped create has led to a situation where healthcare companies, particularly hospitals, offer a reliable source of middle class employment but also consume larger-than-desired public and private budgets that threaten to crowd out investments in education, infrastructure and housing.

Medicare coverage at 50 would be a major incentive to move the rest of the U.S. healthcare system into the prevention business, which is already occurring.

The federal health insurance program for the elderly and disabled, has come a long way since its creation in 1965 when nearly half of all seniors were uninsured. Now the program covers 55 million people, providing insurance to one in six Americans.

Though it provides a vital safety net, Medicaid faces five big challenges to providing good care and control costs into the future.