We thought it would be important to look at the complicated early history of medicare and how difficult it was for previous administrations to enact legislation that so many of us now take for granted. Besides myself, our first panelist includes lynda bird johnson robb, the eldest daughter of president and mrs. Johnson. Lynda is the former chairman of the board for reading is fundamental, the nations largest to childrens literary organization. And she serves on the board of the lbj foundation. She is also the former first lady of virginia and another proud alumnus of the university of texas in austin. , i might mention too her husband, former senator and former governor chuck robb is here. Linda will be joined by larry levinson, deputies special counsel to larry johnson. Larry helped shape a comprehensive domestic legislative agenda which included medicare, the safe streets act, and Landmark Education and civil rights measures. He is a harvard law graduate and lawyer in private practice in washington. Our first moderator, Bob Schieffer. As all of you know, bob is the cbs news chief washington correspondent and the awardwinning host of face the nation. Bob made some news of his own earlier this month when he announced he was stepping down soon from face the nation. And im hoping we will all help change his mind before lunch today. Bob has been a reporter for more than half a century and is virtually won every award in broadcast journalism during his very august career. Including 8 emmy awards. Please give me a big round of applause for Bob Schieffer and our panelists. [applause] bob well, i want to tell you, i announced last week that i was going to retire after 46 years at cbs news. 58 years since i got my first job in journalism. I think for that reason ago i and an appropriate moderator to talk about how medicare got started. Next week, i am going down and signing up for part b. [laughter] bob i would also say this. You know when i announced im going to retire last week im , 78 years old. That is about 13 years past the retirement age for most people. I would not be here after surviving cancer, after living with diabetes, after surviving ulcerative colitis, were it not for the health care that we get in the United States of america. And i would pose one question. What kind of a people would we be, what kind of a country would we be if we did not ensure that every single american has access to the same health care that i had and that got me to the point where, at age 78, i can say i still feel good . I still feel like i can do the job. But i just want to quit while i can still do the job. To me, what other argument needs to be made for the need to make Health Care Available to all americans . [applause] i thank you. I think it is so wonderful to mark this. The year is 1964 and 1965. Two of the most remarkable years in the history of america. You know we remember president s , for their signature accomplishments many times. When you think about those two years and the hundreds of significant pieces of legislation that were passed including medicare, it is very difficult to look back on any presidency and think of that. Just think about it, we had already come through 1964. And these days we all talk about well nothing is going to , happen this year because it is an Election Year. People forget that 1964 was an Election Year and they passed , the first of the two, what later would be the Fair Housing Act in 1968. But the three significant pieces of civil rights legislation. But that was only part of the enormous amount of legislation that was passed. In 1965, in addition to passing the law creating medicare, you had the Voting Rights act, the National Endowment for the arts was created, the National Endowment for the humanities was created, the Clean Air Act, the immigration act. And then of course the medicare and medicaid act. It is not the first time, as we all know in this room, that people had tried, that president s had tried to pass some sort of a medicare law. Fdr tried. He was not able to do it. Harry truman tried. He was not able to do it. But Lyndon Johnson managed to get it done. We want to start by showing you a few pictures of what it was like that day the legislation was signed. [video clip] announcer the Harry S Truman library in independence, missouri is the scene of a historic event. President and mrs. Johnson and Vice President humphrey arrived for ceremonies that will make the medicare bill part of Social Security coverage. Mr. Johnson chose to sign the bill here as a tribute to former president truman. The former President Campaign for medicare, but it took two decades for his proposal to become law. The bill expands the 30yearold Social Security program to provide hospital care, nursing home care, Home Nursing Service and outpatient treatment for those over 65. Medicare will become law on july 1, 1966. And for mr. Truman, a historic souvenir from the president. For mr. Truman, the passage of medicare is a dream come true. [video clip ends] bob there you are. What a remarkable day. And, lynda, i want to start with you. Why was this such a priority with your father . Lynda well, daddy grew up in a world where he knew lots of people who had no choice of when they got older, they lost the farm, they used everything they had to pay for their medical care, and then finally, their only choice was to go to the poor house. And he had also seen what history to their families. Not just people my age, but their children, where they had to make a decision. Do we pay for grandmama to get the medical care she needs . Or do we say weve got to take care of our own children so they can go to college or they can stay in school . And it was a devastating, it was devastating. We had a third of the seniors were living in poverty. And he recognized that there was a great need to do something about it. And he was an opportunist. And he recognized when he came in after that historic election where we had, what, i dont know, 70 new democratic members of congress. He knew this was the time to do it. And presumably there is a story about dirksen. And, you know a lot of the , stories about daddy are apocryphal, but they are so good. [laughter] lynda and, believe it or not, i was not there running the nation. But you have to understand, i did not writing this Medicare Medicaid law. But it seems that after the election, senator dirksen called him and congratulated him on winning this great election, and he said, i need to have this operation, but i want to wait and see if you are going to meet with the leadership. And if you are, i will post on postpone it and daddy presumably said, oh, its so wonderful that you and i can go and get that medical care paid for by the government. Now, wouldnt it be great if we could make it possible for everybody to be able to do that . Bob [chuckles] lynda and locked him in right then. [laughter] lynda one of the things that he really believed in, two really important things. One, he is an opportunist. He could get something through and when he could not. And he recognized that compromise is not the enemy. And he was willing to make compromises in order to able to get the republicans and maybe more archconservative democrats to sign on. And one of, of course, the Great Stories is that our friend congressman mills, just, oh, no he was not going to let it out , of his committee. But when he saw those votes come in, and he knew he could get it passed, he just jumped on it like a on a june bug. He wanted to do it. It was those kinds of things. He recognized that this was something that was crucial for the country. Both for the seniors and for their families so that you could build a stronger middleclass. You did not devastate anybody when mother and daddy got old and needed it. And one of the things that i think you brought out so well, bob, is that it wasnt just when grandmama had a stroke although that was a very important thing. It was when you got to the age where it was so important that you got those regular checkups. So that you discovered the cancer, so that you discovered the diabetes, so that you discovered those things, and in those days, you could not afford to go and get that check up. And so therefore, you were going to have bigger bills. It was going to be worse. We were not going to catch it. And people like Bob Schieffer are going to live and be healthy at 78 instead of having those problems when they were 62. Bob i think i mean, to me, that was one of the things as a political reporter that i appreciated most of that Lyndon Johnson. You are absolutely right lynda in that he had number this one, ability to know how much and how far he could take the country which is why he split , the civil rights bill into two bills. He knew they could not swallow that much in one gulp. And so he divided it into two. ,but he had great news judgment. Lbj would have been a great political reporter. He had been a great reporter because he could always figure out what the lede was. He kept wire Service Machines going 24 hours a day in the oval office. He was the only president who did that. And when something happened, he knew in the best sense of the word what can we get out of , this . It was the same thing when the civil rights problems were happening in selma. And he called Martin Luther king in. And said, you know he had told , him, find the worst place, find where the worst things are happening we will get all those reporters and cameras down there. And he said that will give me the leverage i need to push this legislation through. Larry, why did he decide to go after medicare . He obviously made the speech, it was part of his inaugural address in 1965. Larry this goes back to johnson and his relationship with fdr. And it also tells you the story of two important people, as chairman conyers will note. Let me just mention them now for a moment. Wilbur mills, we used to call him the one man veto on the ways and Means Committee. If you could not move him, you would never see medicare today. And so the question was, what would move wilbur k. Mills, who came from rural arkansas 7500 folks. In arkansas. How were they going to get wilbur to get off of the dime and to move the bill . The second problem is, this cantankerous old guy from virginia, howard smith. He is on the rules committee. I cannot get anything through the rules committee. So how am i going to break this logjam . So lbj had a real daunting task before him and overarching all of this was the ama, and the ama would send leaflets to every doctor. You walk in and the first thing the doctor would say, i may not see you next week because of a socialized medicine bill. And what am i going to do . And the patient was sitting there quivering, saying, i cannot see my doctor anymore. But some Senior Citizens got together, and they said, you know every time a patient walks , into a doctor, lets give them something from the bible to quote back to the doctor. And so, in a moment of concern, when the patient walked in trembling and the doctor presented him with socialized medicine the patient would squeak out. In the bible, it is said that cast me not off in time of old age, forgetmenot when my strength fails. [laughter] that little, little epigram turned the doctors from red to blue. And they said ok. So a couple things happened. You had to move wilbur mills. You had to get howard smith out of the way, and you had to get the ama pacified. A couple things happened. As lynda said. The elections of 1965 brought in a number of democrats into the house. There were now almost 300. And wilmer k. Mills from arkansas said i think i can get , this bill through because i think it is going to pass 300 democrats and the house. And i have got 68 members of the senate under a number of great Senate Leaders like harry byrd and others. The climate was right. The majority in the house. The pendulum had swung in favor of the bill. Now, how do i deal with old mr. Smith . With the rules . Well speaker mccormack came up , with an ingenious solution the 21 day rule. Which is if you do not get the bill out of the rules committee in 21 days, it is gone. It is passed. So, what lbj did, by the depth of his knowledge, parliament really, as you know, chairman to , move away the legal and political obstacles to moving a bill through. Remember you have got to introduce a bill first, and then you have to have hearings. Then it has to be marked up and come out of the committee, then it has to go to the floor. Then the senate has to do the same thing. Lbj, by his mastery of the political machinery in the house , was able to remove the obstacles. And one final note on that, just to end it he wanted to put a , signature around the medicare bill. And he called it hr1 and s1 to show the priority of the bill. Bob you know i love hearing , these stories. Because, you know, we are so used to now that nobody that washington just doesnt seem to work anymore. And it doesnt. You know one of the reasons it , does not is because johnson had such an intimate knowledge of the senate. He knew every member. Not just the ones on his side. He could not only explain to someone why they should be with him, he could explain, in ways they understood, why it was not a good idea to be against him. I always remember the story that joe califano told about him. One of his closest aides. He said once frank church was on before Relations Committee and a big critic of johnson was always coming in quoting Walter Lippman. Who was a leading columnist of the day, and, yes, mr. President , Walter Lippman says this and Walter Lippman said that and lbj said next time you need a dam on the snake river, why dont you call Walter Lippman . And frank church came around on that particular issue. Lynda what he also did, i think this is the other part, he knew what was important for that congressman or that senator in their district and he cared about it. He knew when he could horse trade. And he respected the congress. And he knew that you had to treat them as important people. And he insisted that all of his staff, larry will tell you, that you answer the phone call of senator dirksen or republican congressman the same day you did one for democratic congressmen and senators. And that was a very important thing, to know their pain. To know what was important to them. And one time, you mentioned senator byrd, having virginia connections myself now, i know a lot about senator byrd. Senator byrd, there was some vote coming up and nobody thought he would ever vote for this bill. And somebody said, why would you vote for it . And he said, well when my niece , died, it was cold, ice was around and senator johnson was the only member who came to the funeral. And it was those personal relationship too edit it was interesting. I cannot tell you enough good things about that congress. They also knew that this was a historic year. And they were willing to risk their political lives. Last night i had dinner with secretary sebelius. And she said that her father was elected and that 1964 election. He voted for medicare. He came from a town in ohio that had never elected a democrat. At least not in her lifetime. And he voted for medicare and he was noted out the next election. There were a lot of people like that. In virginia there was a democratic, only one member of the virginia delegation had voted for the Voting Rights act. He was voted out the next year. There were a lot of courageous people in that congress who voted and changed this country and made more difference in their one term there that a lot of people who were there forever and ever, and what we have to realize is this bill did change the way we look at it and the way we live, and as congressman conyers said, it was a civil rights bill, too, in that it integrated our hospitals. It made a big difference. I was looking back on some things that daddy said in vantage point, his book. And he talked about a letter from a woman in auburn, washington. She wrote, and she said i have , never done anything as daring as writing to the top man of our wonderful country. But things are getting awful rough at our house now so i am hoping you can get medicare real soon. You see my husband for almost 46 years, chuck and i am going on 48 now, my husband of 46 years has several strokes. We had both worked and bought land and were doing well when my husband became ill. Now the bonds are gone. I cant borrow because we have no way to repay. We have very fine children, but both have families and homes to keep up too. And we cannot expect any Financial Aid from them. Now, that is what we are talking about. What can we do for those people . How can we make it possible for them to get that help, that medical help before they had the strokes sometimes. And it was a wonderful time to live. We were lucky to do it. We could not have done it without that compromise in congress with republicans and democrats working together. Congress deserves a lot of credit. People like congressman conyers and former congressman dingell. They were very active in getting this through when they were young men. Bob did you want to Say Something . Larry yes, one note to what lyda said. Lynda said. It was an ethical moment. It took place sometime in march when the bill had gone up, hr1 had gone up and nothing was happening. Lbj would come in every day and look at every Committee Schedule and get on the phone with larry obrien, chief of staff on the hill. And he said, larry, nothing is moving. What are you doing . Get cohen over and get something moving. Because there is nothing worse than a bill that sits and is not moving, it is like a dead cat on a porch in the summer. Move the bill.