Navigating a big gap in Medicare

Dental, vision and hearing care are not covered. Here's what you can do about it.

When the Medicare program was enacted in 1965, the goals were very specific: protect people from catastrophic hospitalization costs, and encourage them to seek out primary care.

Life expectancy was shorter than it is today, and policymakers did not focus on things like dental, vision and hearing care. Those seemed like extras.

Yet all three are very impo…