Medicare

• covers 45 million Americans           65 or older and younger people with permanent disabilities
• Circa 1/2 of  beneficiaries live at or below 200% of poverty level                        
• >1/3 of the beneficiaries are afflicted with 3 or more chronic conditions
• In 2009, Medicare cost the federal government about $480 billion, or

• 1/5 of total national health spending on personal health care
• 13 % of the federal budget 
• 3.5 percent of the country's gross domestic product 

Excerpts from New York Times's Economix blog, Uwe Reinhardt, an economics professor at Princeton, summarized the program like this [September 25, 2009 New York Times]