Sixty years ago this week, President Johnson fundamentally changed the American health care system by signing into law Medicare and Medicaid. Medicare and Medicaid remain far from perfect today, but it’s hard to find an achievement that has so directly improved people’s lives in the past sixty years. In the 1960s, around 30 percent of the elderly lived in poverty, health care costs were rising, and the private insurance market considered seniors a “bad risk.”
At the signing of the legislation, President Johnson said, “Older citizens will no longer have to fear that illness will wipe out their savings, eat up their income, and destroy lifelong hope of dignity and independence. For every family with older members it will mean relief from the often crushing responsibilities of care.” Medicare and Medicaid have meant economic security for people after retirement and continued engagement in work, volunteering, and family caregiving as a result of healthier aging. More people with physical and intellectual disabilities have been able to live in their homes and communities today, rather than in institutions, thanks to Medicare and Medicaid. And millions of low-income and middle-income children with high needs have been able to get treatment as a result of these programs.
Source: Medicare and Medicaid Turn Sixty / The Century Foundation