President Lyndon Johnson did not want his signature legislative achievement, the 1965 passage of the Medicare program, to be a means-tested (i.e., income-dependent) welfare program.

And Johnson’s not the only one. In July 2011, AARP Senior Vice President Joyce Rogers released this statement after President Obama indicated he might be willing to consider expanding means testing in Medicare:

“Medicare is not a welfare program.  Seniors pay into Medicare their entire working lives based on the promise that they’ll have secure health coverage when they retire.  Applying a means test for their earned benefits would erode the popular support that has sustained these programs for years and made them so effective in helping older households.

Those fighting to keep Medicare from becoming a means-tested welfare program are losing the battle, but that might be the only way we’re ever going to get real Medicare reform.

While there appears to be little support for making Medicare eligibility dependent on income, there has been growing bipartisan support for imposing higher costs on high-income seniors, who now pay significantly more for some of their Medicare benefits.  The reason for forcing some seniors to pay more is to try to reduce costs in the financially imploding entitlement program.  But if Congress keeps eroding the value of the program for millions of seniors, its public support could decline.

Source: Dr. Merrill Matthews, www.forbes.com