Thread by @julianzelizer

As Democrats ponder the benefits and risks of "going bold," it’s worth remembering that on July 30, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed the law creating Medicare and Medicaid./1

With many Democrats still reeling from the AMA's devastating campaign to defeat President Truman’s national health care plan, some liberals started pushing for a narrower alternative, hospital insurance for the elderly, built into Social Security./2

Even though liberals limited their objectives, conservatives still attacked the proposal as “socialistic.” The AMA warned that "extreme" plans to provide health insurance for the elderly would open the door to a government takeover--of everything./3

Ronald Reagan produced a record warning that "one of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine.” AMA opponents played the LP at coffee klatsch’s to build grassroots opposition to the plan./4

After voting against Medicare in September 1964, Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater warned: “why not food baskets, why not public housing accommodations, why not vacation resorts, why not a ration of cigarettes for those who smoke and of beer for those who drink?"/5

During his 1964 campaign, LBJ ran television ads blasting Goldwater for opposing his proposal, which reporters were calling “Medicare.” This became a top campaign issue. Rather than running way from the controversial idea, LBJ embraced it./6

The election changed everything. LBJ won in a landslide. Democrats expanded their majorities (295 in the House; 68 in the Senate), with the balance of power shifting from southerners toward liberal northerners. Pro-Medicare Democrats were a large contingent in the new class./7

Few in the GOP wanted to stand in the way of Medicare for fear of being connected to Goldwater's extremism. “People think of us Republicans as negative, unimaginative with no true feeling for the wants and needs of the ‘little people’.” said one New York Republican./8

Ways and Means Chair Wilbur Mills, a top opponent of the program, changed his tune. The Arkansan Democrat pushed for legislation even bolder than what JFK or LBJ offered. The final bill covered hospital and doctor’s insurance (Parts A and B) as well as Medicaid for the poor./9

Doctors and hospitals came to depend on these policies. Once staunch opponents, these interest groups could no longer imagine a world without Medicare or Medicaid. Federal and state politicians--Democratic and Republican-- knew that their constituents relied on this coverage./10

Indeed, elderly Americans throughout the country counted on the benefits, as did middle class families who didn’t have to pay for all the health care of their parents and grandparents./11

Though it generated laughs, it was telling that Tea Party conservatives opposing President Obama’s ACA plan in 2009 and 2010 (which included Medicare savings) held up signs like this. Medicare was as American as Apple Pie./12

If the enormous impact of Medicare and Medicaid are of interest, let me recommend a book that I co-edited, entitled "Medicare and Medicaid at 50" with @OxUniPress. The contributors looked at how the programs evolved since 1965. /13
amazon.com/Medicare-Medic…

@OxUniPress The history of Medicare and Medicaid help us to remember that sometimes bold ideas, deemed radical and unrealistic at the time, can turn into the most important and accepted parts of our national policy and integral to the lives of all Americans--red, white and blue./end

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