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Article Source: The NationForty-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.
Truman was delighted to be part of the celebration. But he and Johnson knew that they had not completed the work Truman began when, as part of a “Fair Deal” program developed to complete the work of Franklin Roosevelt’s “New Deal,” he had proposed a national health-care program for all Americans.
That work is still unfinished, which is why Congressman Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, says: “I celebrate Medicare’s birthday by pledging to continue the fight to implement Medicare for All nationally and at the state level, where there is so much promise.”
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