Two Presidents, One Form

A rare dual presidential artifact.

At the bill-signing ceremony President Johnson enrolled President Truman as the first Medicare beneficiary and presented him with the first Medicare card. This is President Truman's application for the optional Part B medical care coverage, which President Johnson signed as a witness. SSA History Archives.

No East Room. No Rose Garden. No Capitol dome in the background.

On July 30, 1965, Lyndon B. Johnson boarded Air Force One and flew 900 miles west to Independence, Missouri. There, at a modest desk inside the Truman Presidential Library, the Senate bruised signed Medicare into law—beside Harry S. Truman.

The New Deal populist who had tried and failed to pass national health insurance became Medicare Beneficiary No. 1.

Bess got Card No. 2.

President Johnson flips through the pages of the bill as former President Truman displays the signing pens. Photo courtesy of LBJ Presidential Library, A-985-6A.

Get the facts before another president voids the check.

Why bring Truman in at all?

1. To stage a generational baton-pass

Johnson invoked Truman’s legacy—and then he enrolled him.

“It was Mr. Truman who planted the seeds of compassion and duty,” Johnson said, working the room and the record.

Johnson filled out Truman’s actual Part B application—blue ink, no ceremony—and signed it as official witness.

2. To make Medicare look overdue, not new

Less than a month after taking office in 1945, Truman asked Congress to create a national health insurance plan. It was the very first domestic policy proposal of his presidency. Hospital visits, doctor bills, preventative care—all covered. Southern Democrats revolted. The AMA spent $1.5 million branding it Stalinist. The bill never got a hearing. He tried again in 1947. And 1949. Same result.

Bringing Truman in reframed the bill as a moral delay, not a political risk. It wasn’t innovation—it was a promise kept. It was good for their legacies—and the party’s.

📉 The safety net is unraveling. At least your inbox doesn't have to.

3. To bulletproof the program
It’s harder to call something radical when it’s got an elederly president’s name on the form. Preferably one who’s been waiting twenty years.

4. Because Johnson understood theater—and paperwork
Two presidents. One signature line. SSA kept the file. Truman Library kept the cards. The photo office kept the negatives.

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“But Soclialism!”

A Future President Enters the Chat

…And Yet Another President

Sixty years after Medicare and Medicaid were signed into law, Trump is cutting them off at the root. His “One Big Beautiful Bill” trades tax breaks for deep cuts to health care and food aid. With new work mandates, cost-shifting, and rollbacks, millions will be dropped. What took two presidents and two decades to build, one signature now starts to dismantle.

Washington crossed the Delaware. Can you cross my palm with $6?

Coming soon: The very last Commanders-in-Heat!

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