Medicaid Vs. Medicare

In today's fast pace life, health is the last thing we think about. Busy schedule, meetings, travels, stress, etc., all contribute to various health issues. And these are all unavoidable because of the unhealthy lifestyle that we lead today. So, if the ailments are unavoidable, we must be ready to face them physically, mentally and monetarily! Health insurance is our way out. There are countless companies offering innumerable insurance plans. The basic difference between medicaid and medicare is that medicaid is provided to those people who have low income, are aged, disabled or have families with dependent children. Understanding the working of medicaid can give you more insight about this health care program. Medicare, on the other hand, is a national health insurance program and Americans who are 65 years and older automatically qualify for medicare.

Eligibility
Low income is not the sole criteria for getting the medicaid benefits. For the medicaid application, the eligibility is as follows:

• Individuals receiving Supplemental Security Income
• People facing disability, blindness and are over 65
• Pregnant women and children under 6 with family income at or below 133% of the federal poverty level.
• Children between the age 6 and 19 who have family income below federal poverty level.
• Teenagers who are living on their own and are up to the age of 21.
• Adults who take care of children below 18.

For medicare eligibility the person should be a US citizen who has worked for at least ten years in a job that has paid money into the Medicare system. Also, the person should be 65 or older unless there is a disability or permanent kidney failure. Medicare has three parts, Medicare Part A which is a hospital insurance and Medicare Part B which is a medical insurance and Medicare Part D which provides prescription drug coverage. If you are receiving Social Security or retirement benefits from the Railroad Retirement Board, are eligible for these but not yet applied or have worked for a medicare covered job, you will be covered under Medicare part A. If you are eligible for part A then you are also covered under part B which requires payment of a monthly insurance premium. Part D is provided by private insurance companies wherein you need to enroll for a prescription drug plan and pay a monthly premium.

Application
You can apply for medicaid from the local office that is responsible for processing medicaid applications and is run by the state government. They can also solve your queries regarding the plans provided. Make sure that you submit complete medicaid application as the most common factor for rejection of the application is incomplete forms.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) department administers Medicare program. Anyone fulfilling the eligibility criteria mentioned above automatically gets enrolled for the medicare program. For those who aren't, they need to fill CMS 40B application for enrollment which you can get from local social security administration office.

Benefits
Generally, medicaid programs seem to be financial strict, they are very good for families. The medicaid benefits package are certainly broad and flexible. They cover a wide range of health insurance schemes and in some health care programs, the health care beneficiary are given some freedom to choose their own benefits with minimum restrictions. Most notable benefit of medicaid programs is that they include wide range of activities from preventive services like immunizations and prenatal care to several others like hospitalization and emergency services. Medicare benefits, on the other hand, are no less, however, they are mostly beneficial for older people. For older population, the expenses of daily medicine prescription and hospitalization charges are managed under medicare benefits.

This summarized comparison between medicaid and medicare must have given you some basic information about these policies in US healthcare system.