ABSTRACT
Surviving and growing were important accomplishments during Medicaid's first fifteen years. After 1972, little happened during the Nixon-Ford administrations that related to Medicaid, except for implementation of the 1972 Amendments and some major initiatives that affected Medicaid indirectly. The Jimmy Carter administration saw another futile quest for national health insurance, in which Medicaid was to have been incorporated into whatever legislation finally passed. There were a number of important initiatives, including child health assurance, hospital cost containment, the fraud and abuse program, the creation of the Health Care Financing Administration, patient protection legislation, and a mental health systems act. Fraud and abuse in Medicaid took some time to reach critical mass, but by 1968 they were already producing lawsuits, indictments, and investigations at the state level, and were important considerations for both the McNerney Task Force and the Senate staff report of 1970.
