Medicare

US health-care insurance programme, administered and financed by the federal government, providing medical benefits to citizens aged 65 or over. Originally proposed by President John F Kennedy as part of his ‘New Frontier’ programme to attack poverty, it was introduced by President Lyndon B Johnson in 1965. Unlike the US health-care programme Medicaid, Medicare largely escaped cutbacks in federal spending during the Republican presidency of Ronald Reagan (1981-88), but was subject to budgetary pressures under Republican president George Bush (1989-92). With the federal budget moving towards surplus, in 1998 the Democrat president Bill Clinton proposed increased spending on Medicare.

Medicare came under criticism for alleged inefficiency, waste, and misuse, in 1999. Research found that treatment provided under Medicare varied significantly between individual physicians and areas of the country.