Pictured in front row, from left, are Hazel Roberts, GRO Organizer Fenny Dorsey, Hazel's granddaughter Brandi, her daughter GRO executive director Robin Acree, and her great-grandkids. Hazel, her family and other friends and GRO leaders gathered to celebrate Medicare's birthday--but will there be any more?
This week Medicaid and Medicare will have its 46th birthday.
The Social Security Act of 1965 was signed into law on July 30, 1965, by President Lyndon B. Johnson as amendments to existing Social Security legislation. This legislation included the establishment of the Medicare and Medicaid programs.
At the bill-signing ceremony, Johnson enrolled former President Harry S. Truman as the first Medicare beneficiary and presented him with the first Medicare card, and Truman’s wife Bess, the second.
GRO leaders gathered this weekend to ask Congressman Luetkemeyer to help ensure many more birthdays for both Medicaid and Medicare. The benefits must be here for the hundreds of thousands of us now, and for future generations that follow. Can we count on our Representative to support our values, and get us a fair deficit reduction plan that requires millionaires, billionaires and corporate CEOs to pay their share instead of cutting the life-saving health care benefits of American seniors, kids and families?
