20. Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society in the 1960s
The election of 1964 saw incumbent President Lyndon Johnson win by a landslide, largely on the tails of the late President John Kennedy. With Johnson came an overwhelming margin of Democrats in the House of Representatives (though many were Southern Democrats, largely conservatives). In 1965 Johnson announced his Great Society, which introduced several liberal initiatives which continued into the 21st century. Succeeding presidents, including Nixon and Reagan, expanded several of them. Among these were federal programs providing healthcare, including Medicare and Medicaid. Both came into being in a highly contentious debate.
The first person to receive Medicare coverage was former president Harry S Truman (and his wife, Bess). Truman had fought for a national health insurance program throughout his administration, to no avail. Republicans opposed it as a form of socialism. Medicare found itself faced with the same opposition. In regards to stopping Medicare one noted Republican said, “If you don’t and I don’t do it, one of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it once was like in America when men were free”. His name was Ronald Reagan. He later expanded the program under pressure from lobbies supporting the rights of senior citizens.