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The Internet has many places to ask questions about anything imaginable and find past answers on almost everything.
It began by enacting long-stalled legislation such as Medicare and federal aid to education and then moved into other areas, including high-speed mass transit, rental supplements, truth in packaging, environmental safety legislation, new provisions for mental health facilities, the Teacher Corps, manpower training, the …
On July 30, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the Social Security Act Amendments, popularly known as the Medicare bill. It established Medicare, a health insurance program for the elderly, and Medicaid, a health insurance program for the poor.
President Lyndon B. Johnson
When did Medicaid and Medicare start? Both were created when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed amendments to the Social Security Act on July 30, 1965. At the 1965 signing ceremony, Johnson enrolled Truman as the first Medicare beneficiary and gave him with the first Medicare card—Truman’s wife Bess got the second.
Medicaid was designed to expand access to “mainstream” health care for low-income individuals and families. The federal government would make payments to states to pay for half or more of their costs in furnishing services to beneficiaries.
Both Medicare and Medicaid are government-sponsored health insurance plans. Funding for Medicare is done through payroll taxes and premiums paid by recipients. Medicaid is funded by the federal government and each state.
People with Medicaid may get coverage for services that Medicare doesn’t cover or only partially covers, like nursing home care, personal care, transportation to medical services, home- and community-based services, and dental, vision, and hearing services.
Medicare pays first, and Medicaid pays second . If the employer has 20 or more employees, then the group health plan pays first, and Medicare pays second .
Medicare is funded by the Social Security Administration. Which means it’s funded by taxpayers: We all pay 1.45% of our earnings into FICA – Federal Insurance Contributions Act, if you’re into deciphering acronyms – which go toward Medicare. Employers pay another 1.45%, bringing the total to 2.9%.
The standard Medicare Part B premium for medical insurance in 2021 is $148.50. Some people who collect Social Security benefits and have their Part B premiums deducted from their payment will pay less.
Social Security is financed through a dedicated payroll tax. Employers and employees each pay 6.2 percent of wages up to the taxable maximum of $142,800 (in 2021), while the self-employed pay 12.4 percent.
The amount you are entitled to is modified by other factors, most crucially the age at which you claim benefits. For reference, the estimated average Social Security retirement benefit in 2021 is $1,543 a month.
Because SSDI is this type of benefit, a person’s assets have nothing to do with their potential eligibility to draw and collect SSDI. In other words, whether you have $50 or $50,000 in the bank makes no difference to the SSA.
The basics of Social Security’s minimum benefit
Years of Coverage | Minimum Benefit at Full Retirement Age |
---|---|
27 | $741.40 |
28 | $785.10 |
29 | $828.90 |
30 or more | $872.50 |
$1,130
The types are retirement, disability, survivors and supplemental benefits.
No. Each spouse can claim their own retirement benefit based solely on their individual earnings history. You can both collect your full amounts at the same time. However, your spouse’s earnings could affect the overall amount you get from Social Security, if you receive spousal benefits.
If your annual pre-retirement expenses are $50,000, for example, you’d want retirement income of $40,000 if you followed the 80 percent rule of thumb. If you and your spouse will collect $2,000 a month from Social Security, or $24,000 a year, you’d need about $16,000 a year from your savings.
In general, you will need roughly 70% to 90% of your pre-retirement income to continue your standard of living in retirement. As a couple, the good news is that, along with having to plan for the expenses of two people, you can plan on having two people’s income and savings.
Research by the Federal Reserve found that the median retirement account balance in the U.S. – looking only at those who have retirement accounts – was just $60,000 in 2016 (the survey is conducted every three years and data for 2019 will be released at the end of 2020). The conditional mean balance was $228,900.