Read CMA’s new issue brief regarding Medicare’s 60th Anniversary here.
(The below content was sent out as a News Release on 7/29/25)
On July 30, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed Medicare into law, creating a promise that older adults would have guaranteed access to medical care. Sixty years later, that promise has delivered extraordinary results. But it also faces grave threats.
Medicare has been a force for justice and progress. It integrated hospitals across the South when segregated health care was still widespread. It provided economic security for millions of older adults and their families by ensuring that people are not one illness away from financial ruin. It expanded to cover people with disabilities. Today, Medicare serves as a lifeline for over 68 million beneficiaries.
Medicare’s legacy extends beyond those it directly serves. The program has anchored our health care system by funding medical education, setting quality standards, supporting rural hospitals, and providing stability in an increasingly complex medical landscape.
Today, however, Medicare is being steadily privatized. More than half of all beneficiaries now receive their care through private Medicare Advantage plans that cost taxpayers 20% more than traditional Medicare, while often restricting access to care through prior authorization barriers and narrow provider networks. These overpayments—$84 billion in this year alone—could instead fund comprehensive dental, vision, and hearing coverage for all Medicare beneficiaries. Meanwhile the traditional Medicare program is increasingly neglected.
The recent passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBB), signed into law on July 4, 2025, represents an unprecedented assault on Medicare’s principles. For the first time in Medicare’s history, the OBBB strips coverage from certain lawfully present immigrants who earned eligibility through their work histories. It also prevents the implementation of Medicare Savings Program enhancements that would have helped low-income beneficiaries afford their health care; stops the implementation of nursing home staffing standards that would have saved 13,000 lives per year; and limits Medicare’s ability to negotiate drug prices for some expensive medications.
Medicare’s sister program, Medicaid, which was also enacted 60 years ago specifically to serve low-income individuals and families, faces even more devastating cuts under the OBBB. New restrictions will cause an estimated 10 million people to lose coverage.
This is not progress. This is breaking the Medicare and Medicaid Act’s promise of access to health care for those who need it most.
“As we commemorate Medicare’s 60th anniversary, we must restore balance to a system tilted excessively toward privatization,” says CMA Co-Director, David Lipschutz. “This means ending the massive overpayments that subsidize Medicare Advantage plans while starving traditional Medicare of resources. It means ensuring that those currently enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans have genuine access to care—not just access to prior authorization denials. And it means strengthening traditional Medicare so it can continue serving as the backbone of American healthcare.”
At the Center for Medicare Advocacy, we are committed to Medicare’s founding promise: that health care should be guaranteed, comprehensive, and available to all who need it.