Lyndon B. Johnson photo

Statement by the President on the Second Anniversary of the Medicare Program.

June 29, 1968

TOMORROW America celebrates the second anniversary of Medicare--a program of healing a quarter of a century in the making.

It was Harry S. Truman who planted the compassionate seeds of this program a generation ago, and now all America is reaping its rich harvest. As Medicare enters its third year, it is fitting to reflect on just what this program has meant to the Nation and its millions of elderly citizens.

A man from Morrisonville, Ill., who had endured six major operations, with medical bills soaring to almost $5,000, wrote to me recently, "I don't know what we would have done without Medicare--without it we would have lost everything."

His testimony is not unique. It is reflected in the experiences of new hope and renewed health that light up thousands of lives in every community of this land.

These are the facts of Medicare--and they speak eloquently of its success and achievement:

--Twenty million Americans, 65 and over, 10 percent of the Nation's population are protected by the program.

--$8.4 billion has paid the expenses incurred in 10.6 million hospital stays and 45 million medical bills.

--Well over a million of our elderly have received the post-hospital care they need in nursing homes and in their own bedrooms. They have been attended by visiting nurses, physical therapists, and other health specialists.

--Almost 1.5 million senior citizens have benefited from hospital out-patient diagnostic services.

For the generation of the Nation's grandparents, Medicare has brought dignity and security.

For the generation of America's young families, concerned for their mothers and fathers, it has brought assurance that their parents will never be neglected in the golden years.

Two years after the dream became reality we can say this of Medicare: By honoring the fundamental humanity which is the spirit of democracy, it is a triumph of rightness in America.

Note: On June 29, 1968, the White House Press Office announced that Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare Wilbur J. Cohen had appointed a 12-member Advisory Council on Health Insurance for the Disabled to study coverage of the disabled under Medicare. The Council, composed of outstanding leaders in the fields of medicine, business, and labor, was chaired by Dr. Henry H. Kessler, director of the Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation in Newark, N.J. The names of the other 11 members are printed in the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents (vol. 4, p. 1042).

Lyndon B. Johnson, Statement by the President on the Second Anniversary of the Medicare Program. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/236875

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