Happy 45th Birthday Medicare And Medicaid

The terrific John Nichols reminds all of us of another glorious birthday for a gem of a program.

Forty-five years ago today, on July 30, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson flew to Independence, Missouri, to mark a milestone in the long struggle to establish health care as a right, not a privilege, for all Americans.

With reporters and photographers surrounding them, Johnson took a place beside former President Harry Truman, who the sitting president thanked for “planting the seeds of compassion and duty which have today flowered into care for the sick and serenity for the fearful.”

With that, Johnson completed the signing of the Social Security Act of 1965, and establishing the universal, single-payer public insurance programs for the elderly and low-income Americans that we know as Medicare and Medicaid.

It was worth the full read and thensome folks.

Happy Birthday indeed folks.