Summary
Contents
Congress and the Nation is the most authoritative reference on congressional trends, actions, and political and policy controversies. This award-winning series documents the most fiercely debated issues in recent American politics, providing a unique retrospective analysis of the policies the U.S. Congress. Organized by policy area, each chapter contains summaries of legislative activity, including bills passed, defeated, or postponed. No other authoritative source guides readers seamlessly through the policy output of the national legislature with the breadth, depth, and authority of Congress and the Nation.
Congress and the Nation is the most authoritative reference on congressional trends, actions, and political and policy controversies. This award-winning series documents the most fiercely debated issues in recent American politics, providing a unique retrospective analysis of the policies the U.S. Congress. Organized by policy area, each chapter contains summaries of legislative activity, including bills passed, defeated, or postponed. No other authoritative source guides readers seamlessly through the policy output of the national legislature with the breadth, depth, and authority of Congress and the Nation.
Chapter 14
Chapter 14
Health, Education and Welfare
Introduction
The most enduring legacy of the Johnson Administration may well be the wide range of innovative social programs initiated under the banner of the “Great Society.” The years 1964—68 saw the enactment of piece after piece of landmark social legislation that promised to have an impact on the nation for generations to come. Some of this legislation, such as general education aid and medical care for the aged, had been bottled up in Congress since the Truman Administration. Other programs bore Mr. Johnson's personal stamp.
Mr. Johnson's most important independent initiative was the “war on poverty,” which he “declared” in his first State of the Union Message and later expanded into the cornerstone of the “Great Society.” The basic antipoverty legislation, the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, established 10 programs—among them Head Start, the Job Corps and VISTA—which amounted to the first concerted attack on poverty since New Deal days. In spite of increasing opposition, Congress extended the programs in 1965, 1966 and 1967 and appropriated more money each year.
Other major programs followed: Medicare and Medicaid, federal aid for elementary and secondary education, federal scholarships for college students, the Partnership for Health program and an assortment of consumer protection laws. Much of this legislation, which together with housing formed the heart of the “Great Society,” was enacted during the 89th Congress (1965—66); huge Democratic gains in the 1964 Congressional elections provided the margin of votes for passage. In the last years of the Johnson Administration, the economic drain of the Vietnam war—and the disillusionment the war produced—caused the pace to slacken. New proposals often were not acted on, and programs already enacted were funded well below authorized limits.
Health
A major expansion of federal health programs occurred under the Johnson Administration, as the focus of the federal role shifted from research and training to more direct efforts to provide improved health care for the general population.
Aside from Medicare and Medicaid (see Welfare, below), major new legislation enacted included the Partnership for Health program, which provided for a coordinated federal-state attack on health problems, and the Heart Disease, Cancer and Stroke Amendments, which provided grants for specialized research and training and for demonstrations of patient care.
Other programs were extended and expanded: community mental health and retardation, air pollution control and educational assistance for doctors, nurses and other health specialists.
Reacting to two current social problems, drug abuse and the population explosion, Congress strengthened federal controls over stimulant, depressant and hallucinogenic drugs and authorized federal aid for family planning services.
No action was taken on proposals for increased federal aid to modernize deteriorating hospitals in urban areas. Instead, Congress enacted a simple extension of the Hill-Burton program which provided grants for hospital construction, primarily in rural areas.
Education
The federal role in the field of education also expanded dramatically in the mid-1960's. Federal support of education had been growing piecemeal since the Morrill Act of 1862, but until 1965 no aid program was enacted which could be considered a general subsidy program for education or for college students.
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