Memories shaping my life, as I celebrate Medicare's 60th birthday, health care

 In my very senior years, if I had to name one thing in my young years that shaped the rest of my life, it was the cost of health care.  It was not my health care, but my very handicapped brother's.  My parents were only able to breathe a sigh of financial relief and think about retirement when LBJ signed the seminal piece of legislation for Medicare. Medicaid for low-income people came into being in the same legislation in 1965.. My young brother Phil was a 6-month premature baby born in the latter years of World War II.  He had so many medical challenges, he spent periods of months at a time at the children's hospital in St. Louis over most of his pre-school and elementary school years, undergoing treatment for his physical disabilities and any number of surgeries and rehab.  My father was a telephone company district manager at the time in poverty-stricken eastern Oklahoma, and we were better off than most of my classmates, but nonetheless, we had to count our pennies because of the medical expenses. A local forward-looking school board, college scholarships, and family connections permitted me to still get a great education, but the reality was that even back in the 1940s and 50s, the cost of health care for others hit with such extraordinary needs made their ability to get the care they needed out of reach. That shaped my political views for the rest of \my life. I was Phil's caregiver after my parents' death, and I learned to navigate the health care system that gave him a semblance of a normal life until he passed away at age 65, spending his latter ten years in assisted living and a nursing home. His care could not have been adequate without Medicare and Medicaid.   I raise my coffee cup this morning in gratitude to LBJ and the breakthrough act of signing the Medicare legislation.  Yes, Sen. Joni Ernst, we all will die, but at least care about the degree of suffering many will have getting to that date without access to adequate health care, as you voted to cut Medicaid.   'We all are going to die': Sen. Ernst response to grilling on Medicaid : NPR

Per Google AI: The Medicare bill, officially known as the Social Security Amendments of 1965, was signed into law on July 30, 1965. This act established the Medicare program, a health insurance program for the elderly, and also created Medicaid, a program for people with limited income. The bill was signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson at the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum in Independence, Missouri...