Alicia Jones
HCS/235
June 17, 2012
Barbara Williamson
Healthcare Terms
Medicare- Medicare is a type of insurance that is mainly set in place for the elderly, over 65 years of age. You can also qualify for Medicare if you are under the age of 65 years old but you have a certain type of disability. There are four different parts of Medicare coverage. There is Part A which covers the patient’s hospital care, nursing homes, or home health care. With Part A insurance most people do not have to pay a premium. Part B covers the medical side of everything including doctors’ visits, medical equipment, and things of that nature. However, the patient does have to pay a premium each month with this type of insurance. Part C covers both Part A and B insurance. It does come with other benefits but most of the time people have to pay extra for those services. Part D covers prescription drugs. It helps a great deal with the cost of prescription drugs because they can really be costly for people. The fund to keep Medicare going is coming out of taxpayers’ checks every time they get paid. This is called FICA (Federal Insurance Contributions Act). They also get funding from copays, premiums, and deductibles.
Medicaid- Medicaid is a type of insurance that is set in place for children, families with low income, pregnant women and other people who qualify. It was established in 1965 by President Johnson to help those that were in need. Medicaid is joined together with both the state and federal but it is mostly regulated by the state and the state just follows federal guidelines. It depends on the state that you are in on what type of coverage that the patient is going to have with this type of insurance. They do cover the most important things such as vaccinations, doctor visits, prenatal care, inpatient and outpatient services, and family planning services. Depending on the state that you are in, there is no co-pay unless you are over the age of 21 (North