The bullhorn rang out at lunch hour at the Thompson Center: “MEDICARE! Keeping seniors off cat food since 1965!”
Amid flyers, candy, party balloons, horns, and rousing sax music, we rallied at the Thompson Center, celebrating Medicare, America’s most popular social program. We rallied on July 27, three days before its 46th anniversary.
In this video, Tom Wilson and Quentin D. Young, our state’s Public Health Advocate, speak eloquently about the fight we still need to wage for single-payer.
Though the sun was brilliant that day, the dark cloud of the debt ceiling debate, which calls for deep cuts in Medicare, hung over our fight. But with ISPC, the Gray Panthers and the ISO in tow, we made our voices heard and connected with many on the street. People know something is still wrong with the health care system, can sense it in their bones, and in time, we will draw more people to fight for the only reform that will work.
At a time when more and more people are uninsured, underinsured and bearing the brunt of skyrocketing medical costs, the last thing we need is to get rid of Medicare. What the health care system really needs is a stronger, better-funded, expanded Medicare. That is exactly what we are fighting for. Join us!
On July 30, 1965, President Johnson signs Medicare into law as former President Harry Truman looks on.