Insuring Health

Johnson introduced Medicaid and Medicare. Formerly, low-income people had been served with health care on the basis of charity, but from then on they were handed a "right" to have it paid for by someone else. Any and all stigma was removed. You offer something for free, people will take it; and they did. The overall cost of US health care started rising sharply in that very decade, and has not looked back since. Like the bumper sticker says, "If you think health care is expensive now, wait until it's free."

The health care debate continues unabated in the news media and town halls. It will eventually be passed in a diluted form which will enable all the politicians to say it was the best they could do in these partisan times. Then, we will have to live with the inevitable consequences of higher premiums and more expensive, rationed health care.