Medicare and the Budget
Seeking Common Ground in a Partisan Political Climate
When President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the act establishing Medicare in 1965, he presented the first Medicare card to former President Harry Truman, saying, “No longer will older Americans be denied the healing miracle of modern medicine.” President Johnson probably could not have foreseen the trajectory that the Medicare program would take over the next half century. The program initially covered 19 million people and, by 1970, cost $7.4 billion. In 2010, it covered 47.5 million Americans — including 39.6 million people 65 or older and 7.9 million disabled. Total benefits paid out were $516 billion. Today, it…
