{"id":20448,"date":"2025-01-10T00:01:33","date_gmt":"2025-01-10T00:01:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/american-history\/americanstudies-january-9-2025-great-society-laws-medicare-and-medicaid\/"},"modified":"2025-01-10T00:01:33","modified_gmt":"2025-01-10T00:01:33","slug":"americanstudies-january-9-2025-great-society-laws-medicare-and-medicaid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=20448","title":{"rendered":"AmericanStudies: January 9, 2025: Great Society Laws: Medicare and Medicaid"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n

[60 years
\nago this month, President
\nLyndon B. Johnson<\/a>\u2014fresh off his successful re-election
\ncampaign\u2014created his Great Society program, pushing Congress to help him (as he
\nput it in his
\n1964 speech<\/a> acceptance the presidential nomination) \u201cbuild a great society, a
\nplace where the meaning of man\u2019s life matches the marvels of man\u2019s labor.\u201d So
\nthis week I\u2019ll AmericanStudy a number of Great Society laws, leading up to a
\npost on what we still desperately need to learn from these histories.]<\/p>\n

How the
\nGreat Society reflected two distinct ways of thinking about health care, and why
\nthe second in particular is still urgently needed.<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the
\nlife lessons we all learn\u2014or rather we hope to live long enough to learn\u2014is that
\naging ain\u2019t for the faint of heart. I don\u2019t know how long exactly a relatively
\nhealthy human body is designed (not in an Intelligent Design sense, to be
\nclear, just in the biology and chemistry\/nature and evolution sense) to live,
\nbut it seems clear to me that in the modern world our life expectancies well outpace
\nthat plan, leading to all the potential (and likely, if not indeed inevitable)
\nhealth and medical issues that come with aging. Before the creation of Social
\nSecurity in the 1930s<\/a>, aging Americans were pretty much entirely on their own
\nwhen it came to such challenges; but that new program alone wasn\u2019t quite
\nsufficient to really deal with those health and medical realities, and so the
\nGreat Society added a vital new element, the health insurance program for
\nseniors known
\nas Medicare<\/a>. As the son to a pair of older parents, I\u2019ve seen first-hand
\nhow vital both Social Security and Medicare are to helping folks and families
\nnavigate these inevitable challenges of aging, and I truly can\u2019t imagine how anyone
\nsurvived the arc of life in America without them (and it seems clear<\/a> that
\nmany, many more folks did not, or at least did so with far more challenges
\nstill). <\/span><\/p>\n

Although Medicare
\nis an entirely communal and indeed a socialist program (yeah, I invoked the American
\nBogeyman<\/a>, but it\u2019s the truth, folks), I would argue that it nonetheless
\nreflects an individual approach to health care, or rather a resource designed
\nto help individuals and families navigate their own health and medical
\nchallenges. Given the Great Society\u2019s emphases on both a \u201cWar on Poverty\u201d and
\nsocial safety nets, it\u2019s not surprising that in the same years\u2014and indeed in
\nthe same law, the Medicare
\nand Medicaid Act<\/a> (also known as the Social Security Amendments) of 1965\u2014the
\nadministration also created a more overtly community-focused health insurance program,
\nMedicaid<\/a>. Designed as a way to
\nguarantee a baseline level of health insurance and thus health care for the
\nmost disadvantaged Americans, Medicaid quickly evolved to include a number of
\nrelated and even more overtly community-focused programs, including for example
\nthe Children\u2019s Health Insurance
\nProgram<\/a> (CHIP) that offers access to not just health insurance but also community
\nhealth programs<\/a> for all American children and families.<\/span><\/p>\n

Medicare
\nand Medicaid are in many ways, as their names suggest, parallel and complementary
\nprograms. But I do believe that the latter is more community focused than the
\nformer, and likewise and even more importantly represents a recognition that
\nhealth insurance and health care are communal needs, that access to them
\nprofoundly affects not only individuals but also and in many ways especially communities
\nfor the better (and the absence of them does so for the worse). One of the most
\nfrustrating aspects of the last couple decades in American politics (an incredibly
\nlong and competitive list to be sure) has been the collective unwillingness of
\nso many Americans to a) recognize that programs like Medicare and Medicaid are
\nalready collective and governmental and, again, socialist; and b) extend that awareness
\nto a recognition that collective health insurance and policies, such as the
\nidea of \u201cMedicare
\nfor All<\/a>,\u201d would represent a vital step forward in guaranteeing access to
\nhealth insurance and care for all Americans. That\u2019s one Great Society lesson we
\ndesperately still need to learn. <\/span><\/p>\n

Last Great
\nSociety law tomorrow,<\/span><\/p>\n

Ben<\/span><\/p>\n

PS. What
\ndo you think? <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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