1960s AD - Decade

Washington Monthly, Oct, 1999 by Joseph A. Califano

Is revolution too strong a word? Since 1965, 79 million Americans have signed up for Medicare. In 1966, 19 million were enrolled; in 1998, 39 million. Since 1966, Medicaid has served more than 200 million needy Americans. In 1967, it served 10 million poor citizens; in 1997, 39 million. The 1968 Heart, Cancer and Stroke legislation has provided funds to create centers of medical excellence in just about every major city -- from Seattle to Houston, Miami to Cleveland, New Orleans to St. Louis. To staff these centers, the 1965 Health Professions Educational Assistance Act provided resources to double the number of doctors graduating from medical schools, from 8,000 to 16,000. That Act also increased the pool of specialists and researchers, nurses, and paramedics. Community health centers, also part of the Great Society health care agenda, today serve almost eight million Americans annually. The Great Society's commitment to fund basic medical research lifted the National Institutes of Health to unprecedented financial heights, seeding a harvest of medical miracles.

Closely related to these health programs were efforts to reduce malnutrition and hunger. Today, the Great Society's food stamp program helps feed more than 20 million men, women, and children in more than 8 million households. Since it was launched in 1967, the school breakfast program has provided a daily breakfast to nearly 100 million schoolchildren.

Taken together, these programs have played a pivotal role in recasting America's demographic profile. In 1964, life expectancy was 66.6 years for men and 73.1 years for women (69.7 years overall). In a single generation, by 1997, life expectancy jumped 10 percent: for men, to 73.6 years; for women, to 79.2 years (76.5 years overall). The jump was highest among the less advantaged, suggesting that better nutrition and access to health care have played an even larger role than medical miracles. Infant mortality stood at 26 deaths for each 1,000 live births when LBJ took office; today it stands at only 7.3 deaths per 1,000 live births, a reduction of almost 75 percent.

These enormous investments in training medical and scientific experts and funding the National Institutes of Health have played a key part in establishing our nation as the world's leader in basic research, pharmaceutical invention, and the creation of surgical procedures and medical machinery to diagnose our diseases, breathe for us, clean our blood, and transplant our organs.

Those of us who worked with Lyndon Johnson would hardly characterize him as a patron of the arts. Yet think about what cultural life in America would be like without the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities, which were designed to "create conditions under which the arts can flourish," and make fine theater and music available throughout the nation, not just at Broadway playhouses and the Metropolitan Opera in New York. The Endowment for the Arts has spawned art councils in all 50 states and more than 420 playhouses, 120 opera companies, 400 dance companies and 230 professional orchestras. Johnson also oversaw the creation of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, whose programs entertain three million people each year and are televised to millions more, and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, which attracts more than 700,000 visitors annually.