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Lyndon Johnson on Health Care
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Signed Medicare bill to avoid family financial disasters
President Johnson was scheduled to sign the Medicaire bill on July 30, 1965. Johnson said, "No longer will older Americans be denied the healing miracle of modern medicine. No longer will illness crush and destroy the savings that they have so carefully
put away over a lifetime so that they might enjoy dignity in their later years. No longer will young families see their own incomes, and their own hopes, eaten away simply because they are carrying out their deep moral obligations to their parents."
Source: Critical, by Tom Daschle, p. 62-63
, Feb 19, 2008
Advancing the Nation's Health: expand Medicare
The President sent to the Hill a special message entitled "Advancing the Nation's Health." Johnson had a favorite phrase for his administration. He was, he liked to say, "the education President and the health President."
These were the down-to-earth needs that came naturally. As a senator, he had opposed federal medical systems.
But as President, Johnson's personal sentiment for a program like Medicare coincided with building national support.
Medicare had its expected enemies--conservatives and private insurance companies--but its serious problem was that peculiarly potent antagonist, the American Medical Association, which excoriated it as "socialized medicine."
Source: Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson, by Eric F. Goldman, p.285-286
, Mar 1, 1974
Page last updated: Apr 28, 2013
