During the year of 1965, Lyndon Johnson went to the new Congress with the Great Society legislation, promising ending poverty, health to the elderly, and so many other social changes. One of his ideas was the creation of a bill providing medical insurance coverage for those over age sixty-five. The act that finally emerged went well beyond the original proposal. It created not just a Medicare program for the aged but also a Medicaid program of federal grants to states to help cover medical payments for the indigent. President Johnson signed the bill on July 30, 1965, in Independence, Missouri.
