Medicare and Medicaid Act

For historical perspective, the LBJ Presidential Library has collected related photos, videos, audio, and text. All are public domain.

Facts

• Although usually called the Medicare bill, the actual title of the law is the Social Security Amendments of 1965. Medicare is Title XVIII of the Social Security Act; Medicaid is Title XIX.
• President Lyndon Johnson signed the amendments into law on July 30, 1965, at the Harry S. Truman Library in Independence, Missouri.
• Truman had tried to pass a bill to provide low-cost medical and hospital care for America’s elderly but had failed in his attempts. At the ceremony, Harry Truman was the first person to enroll in Medicare; he and his wife, Bess, received the first Medicare insurance cards.
• Budget funding for Medicare and Medicaid in fiscal year 1966, the first full year of Medicare’s operation, was approximately $2.2 billion.
• More than 2 and a half million Americans received hospital care covered by Medicare in the program’s first six months.

Some initial provisions of the program as passed in 1965:

• Program covered up to 90 days of hospital care, 100 days of nursing home care, and 100 home health care visits
• Persons over 65 could pay $3 a month for a voluntary health insurance plan covering 80 percent of doctor bills, laboratory tests, and related services.
• Language in the Medicare law required persons not covered by Social Security to swear that they were not members of any Communist organizations, a requirement that carried over from Section 210a (17) of the Social Security Act.