ABSTRACT
The electoral outcome of 1964 guaranteed the passage of legislation on medical care for the aged. Not one of the obstacles to Medicare was left standing. A legislative possibility until the election of 1964, the King-Anderson program had become a statutory certainty. Administration leaders assumed after the election that the Ways and Means Committee would report a bill similar to the one rejected by the conference in 1964. The Byrnes bill was ready for discussion because the Republicans on the committee, in the wake of the 1964 election, wanted to prevent the Democrats from taking exclusive credit for a Medicare law. There was really no doubt that the expansion of Medicare would be sustained by the more liberal Senate and its Finance Committee. More than 500 differences were resolved in conference between the Senate and House versions of Medicare.
