MEDICAL CARE FOR THE ELDERLY AND POOR: The Medicare and Medicaid Act of 1965

On a hot, muggy July 30, 1965, in a simple but moving ceremony in the auditorium of the Truman Presidential Library in Independence, Missouri, President Lyndon Johnson affixed his signature to the Social Security Amendments of 1965, known to all as Medicare and Medicaid. Johnson, with an entourage of forty-seven, including thirty-three members of Congress, had flown from Washington to Independence to honor his predecessor, Harry Truman. In opening the ceremonies, the eighty-one-year-old former president uncharacteristically struggled for the right words. “I am glad to have lived this long and to witness today the signing of the Medicare bill.”