LBJ Was Big Hero In Medicare Battle

Moviegoers around the world have been viewing a critically praised biopic on the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and it unfairly maligns President Lyndon B. Johnson.

“Selma,” the film chronicle of the events that led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, is disappointing because of its revisionist distortion of history and President  Johnson’s role. 

 I agree with Julian Bond, who was active in the movement as an aide to Dr. King, who recently said that the film needed a villain, so it incorrectly cast the former president in that role. 

The truth is, LBJ and Dr. King collaborated on gaining passage of the Voting Rights Act by a Congress that was reluctant to act on more progressive legislation so soon after passing the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Historian Robert A. Caro’s remarkable (and still in progress) multi-volume biography of Johnson portrays him as a deeply flawed (and often thoroughly unlikable) human being, but one of the very few legislative geniuses this nation has ever seen. He revitalized a thoroughly sclerotic Senate when he became its youngest-ever majority leader and helped pass the first civil rights bill in nearly 90 years in 1957. It was considered a watered-down compromise, but it was a preview of things to come.

LBJ took his legislative genius with him to the White House, deciding that the office of the president was specifically for what he called “lost causes.” As a result, he bested most if not all American presidents at getting Congress to pass progressive legislation (e.g., the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, Medicaid, Medicare), and he deserves better treatment by Hollywood than what was presented in this film.

LBJ personally shepherded through Congress and signed a transformative healthcare bill on July 30, 1965 in Independence Mo., the hometown of President Harry Truman, a predecessor who tried but failed to get this progressive legislation passed.    That bill, H.R. 6675, established Medicare, a federal health insurance program for the elderly, and Medicaid, a state-managed healthcare program for low-income people in the United States.  

President Truman, who was present, then became the first Medicare enrollee.

“In this town, and a thousand other towns like it, there are men and women in pain who will now find ease. There are those, alone in suffering who will now hear the sound of some approaching footsteps coming to help. There are those fearing the terrible darkness of despairing poverty — despite their long years of labor and expectation — who will now look up to see the light of hope and realization,” said President Johnson at the signing.

LBJ’s passion about equality did not end with the passage of this new law.  When coverage began in 1966, Medicare was instrumental in the desegregation of hospitals across the United States.  Separate-but-equal hospitals had received federal funding since 1946 under the Hill-Burton Act.  However, to receive Medicare reimbursement, hospitals were required to desegregate. Although the condition initially met some opposition, more than 1,000 hospitals complied in just four months.

Fifty years later, Medicare is perhaps the most cherished program in U.S. history. Medicaid (which was more reluctantly embraced by the states) is being expanded again under the Affordable Care Act (with the same reluctance) in order to help millions of more Americans fallen on hard time.

Why is this history lesson important?

“Selma” will be viewed by new generations of Americans who will believe that LBJ was part of the problem when he was in fact so very much part of the solution to our nation’s issues with race relations and healthcare for the poor and elderly.

The producers of Selma should take lessons from the producers of “Lincoln.” They gave us an entertaining film that while stretching the truth did not make a shambles of history and the former president’s legacy.

RIP LBJ…and thank you for your herculean efforts for poor and disenfranchised Americans.

Jim Lott is the chief strategy officer for Martin Luther King, Jr. Medical Center. He is  a member of the Payers & Providers editorial board.