It was a generation ago that Harry Truman said, and I quote him: ‘Millions of our citizens do not now have a full measure of opportunity to achieve and to enjoy good health. Millions do not now have protection or security against the economic effects of sickness. And the time has now arrived for action to help them attain that opportunity and to help them get that protection.’ … The need for this action is plain; and it is so clear indeed that we marvel not simply at the passage of this bill, but what we marvel at is that it took so many years to pass it. President Lyndon B. Johnson said this as he signed Medicaid into law on July 30, 1965, thanking former President Harry S.