A Page From History
The 1965 Medicare Debate
During the 1964 political campaign, President Lyndon B. Johnson promised, if elected, to seek passage of legislation establishing a program of "medicare" for the aged under the Federal Social Security system. Following the Democratic victory, the first bill introduced in each house of the newly convened 78th Congress was the King-Anderson bill (after Representative Cecil King [CA-D] and Senator Clinton Anderson [NM-D]). The measure sought to establish as a permanent part of the Social Security program a compulsory "health insurance" tax on wages that, together with general tax revenues, would be used to finance a program of limited hospital and…
