Overview: Medicare and prevention.
Year: 2006
Type: article
Abstract: With the passage of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has become a more prevention-oriented agency. This law provided coverage for new primary, secondary, and tertiary preventive benefits, including an initial preventive physical examination for Medicare beneficiaries newly enrolled in Part B, diabetes and cardiovascular disease screening tests, prescription drugs, and the Medicare Health Support Program to help chronically ill people manage their conditions. CMS' more intense focus on prevention is timely, given several positive and negative trends.
Positive Trends
In less than 5 years, the U.S. will experience the beginning of an unprecedented demographic shift as the oldest of the baby boom generation—people born between 1946 and 1964—turns 65. The number of people age 65 or over is expected to double, from 36 million or 12 percent of the population in 2003 to 72 million or nearly 20 percent of the population in 2030 (He et al., 2005). People are also living longer and healthier lives than ever before due to improvements in public health, medicine, and nutrition that occurred in the twentieth century. The average life expectancy at birth in 1900 was 47.3 years; in 2000, it was 76.9 years. A person who lived to age 65 or 75 in 2003 has an average of approximately 18.4 or 11.8 years of life left to live, respectively (National Center for Health Statistics, 2005). In addition, trends over the last two decades suggest that disability and functional limitation are declining among older adults.
Source: PubMed
Author: Pauline Lapin
Institution: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
Language: English
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1642209170