Hassle-Free Health Coverage: How Medicare and Medicaid Work Introduction

Medicare is a federal health insurance program for the aged (people 65 and older), people of any age with permanent kidney failure, and certain disabled people. So, if you're one of 38 million Americans who qualify as either aged or disabled, you can get Medicare insurance.

Enrollment can be either automatic or optional -- depending on the coverage in question. So, make sure that you filed the right paperwork to get the full package of Medicare coverage.

Technically, Medicare is part of the Social Security System and is administered by the Health Care Financing Administration -- an agency of the Department of Health and Human Services. The program is federally funded -- which means participants pay very little for the coverage they receive. The coverage applies to hospitalization as well as basic medical expenses.

The basic medical care needed when you are older and covered by Medicare includes, but is not limited to:

- necessary day-to-day outpatient medical care;

- occasional hospitalization for care of chronic or acute ailments or accidents; and

- possibly skilled nursing care in a nursing home.

Medicare is designed to provide some benefits for each of these major needs. The benefits aren't great -- most private sector health insurance covers more...more completely. But Medicare does offer the functional level of health coverage that most older people in the United States use.

This a rough outline of Medicare. The practical issues of how the program works can get complicated. Even if you've been in the system for a few years, you may be unclear about what it covers, what it excludes, how much of your medical expenses you will be responsible for, and whether you need additional health insurance.

We'll answer these questions -- with as little drudgery as possible.