On July 30, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the Social Security Act Amendments, popularly known as the Medicare bill. It established Medicare, a health insurance program for the elderly, and Medicaid, a health insurance program for the poor.
“Larry Silver must have given me the assignment of understanding Medicaid. I remember taking the huge volumes of congressional records on a nice spring day and sitting under a tree and laboriously sorting through them to understand congressional intent. For a period of time I was the only person in the country that really understood the Medicaid and the numbers. This became my area of expertise, and I was able to really raise the awareness of Medicaid in local legal services.” -Pat Butler, Former National Health Law Program Staff Attorney, Specializing in Medicaid, 2018
