Medicare is a national social insurance program in the United States. It is administered by the federal government. Provides health insurance to citizens aged 65 and over. These citizens must have initially worked and paid into trust funds. Additionally, Medicare covers patients on dialysis or those with end-stage renal disease. This program was established in 1966. Medicaid, on the other hand, is a social health program for both families and individuals earning low income in the United States. It affects citizens of all ages, whose salaries are not enough to provide healthcare. Those eligible must be low-income US citizens and also disabled. Medicare has many advantages. For starters, an individual with Medicare can still use their private insurance plan for routine checkups. Therefore, you are by no means tied to the Medicare program alone. However, each member is assigned a general practitioner, who must be contacted to enjoy all the benefits. Better yet, if you need special attention, a specialist is assigned by Medicare, who is usually recommended by your primary care doctor (Berwick, 2011). Additionally, monthly payments are highly subsidized or, in some cases, no monthly payments at all. Additionally, medications are included in the kitten. However, you will need to contribute a little to cover some of the cost of your medications. Medicare benefits are similar across the country. This is not the case with Medicaid. Medicaid policies change in different states. Nonetheless, there are strengths of Medicaid that are common across the board. Medicaid tends to pay a lot of specialized attention to expectant mothers. Offers obstetric nurse services, family......middle of paper......more prone to chronic diseases. As for Medicaid, it needs to improve chronic care management. Chronic care management should be made more accessible to individuals with chronic illnesses (Baicker, Katherine, & Amy Finkelstein, 2011). This way, the program will be more beneficial to more people. The program should also introduce and support home and community services. Providing care at home will be much cheaper than nursing homes. Additionally, Medicaid must offer personalized services to beneficiaries. Patients' needs are not equal. Therefore, Medicaid should be flexible enough to move away from the one-size-fits-all mentality. Nonetheless, we cannot ignore the fact that Medicare and Medicaid have revolutionized the healthcare system in the United States. Giving credit where credit is due, these two programs continue to save millions of helpless lives.