On July 30, 1965 at Independence MO President Johnson signed Medicare into law. Present at the ceremony was President Truman who had first proposed national health care legislation in 1945. Truman received the first Medicare card.
Today around 50 million Americans rely on Medicare for some part of their health care. It is estimated that Medicare has reduced the poverty rate for the elderly by 2/3rds. It is hard to imagine where a lot of our people over 65 would be without Medicare. Not many people have the resources at that age to afford to pay for all of their health care. I suppose that one could say that if they can't pay than they can just suffer. Myself I am glad that there is a program like Medicare, that while not being perfect does do a great deal to help reduce suffering.
I was only nine when Medicare was passed, however I can remember some people saying how it would ruin the country. I suppose I remember because of how vehement the opposition was. The emotional tone that I remember from that time reminds me of some of the current feeling about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act - also called Obamacare. Myself I didn't care for the law too much since I tend to favor a single-payer system, since that seems to work in most every other developed nation. Still I am willing to give it a chance in that it might be at least a start toward something better - and it wouldn't take much to be better than what we have now. Hopefully things will work out as well as they did with Medicare.
I don't remember Medicare ever getting tagged with a name like JohnsonCare. And maybe memories of LBJ would be kinder if he was more associated with things like Medicare and Civil Rights instead of the Vietnam War. If the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act does become successful and popular than those in opposition may regret that the gave it the label ObamaCare.
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