> There is no reason Medicare should be restricted to those over 65, or why Medicaid is implemented differently (and reimburses providers more poorly than Medicare). Or even Tricare. We have at least 3 different taxpayer funded healthcare programs specifically so not everyone can get access to equal care, but so that various classes of people can get healthcare proportional to their political power (which usually scale with money, but also votes in the case of old people).
Medicare/Medicaid reimbursements are insufficient to support most medical practices. Tricare is for military & their families. Most active duty military are young & extremely healthy compared to the general population.
Medicare/Medicaid combined are the largest single item on the federal budget. More importantly, they are still growing in costs because of an aging population, and are heading towards 30% overall of the federal budget [1]
Tricare operates as an employment perk. Medicare has a cap on benefits, but is effectively mandatory for 65+, and medicaid operates as a payor of last resort, after folks have run out their lifetime benefits on medicare.
However, an argument in favor of your suggestion is that the vast majority of medical resources are spent on the last 2 years of life, often for terminally ill patients with a ton of co-morbidities that are at death's door anyways. Most medical spending happens in the latter part of life [2]
> 25% of Medicare’s annual spending is used by the 5% of patients during the last 12 months of their lives [3]
[1] https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/reports/2010...
[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1361028/
[3] https://www.acsh.org/news/2018/09/28/true-cost-end-life-medi...