On the recordJuly 30, 2014
With the stroke of a pen 49 years ago today, several weeks after I finished high school, then-President Lyndon Johnson signed into law two of the largest and most important health-related programs the country had ever seen, Medicare and Medicaid. Those programs were created nearly half a century ago because our Nation's leaders saw, time and time again, the hopelessness of people who had no way to provide the most basic level of health care for themselves and their families. It was President Harry Truman who initially conceived of a health care safety net for struggling Americans. Nearly 70 years ago, Truman said: ``Millions of our citizens do not now enjoy good health. Millions do not have security against the economic effects of sickness . . . and the time has arrived for action to help them get that protection.'' Since the creation of Medicare and Medicaid, no achievement has been as significant and consequential as the Affordable Care Act. In addition to providing affordable health insurance, to some for the first time ever, the ACA has also provided for significant expansion of states' Medicaid programs so that individuals with incomes less than 138 percent of the poverty level could finally have access to basic care. A Supreme Court case would make Medicaid expansion voluntary.…
