Medicare and Medicaid Turn 50: Born from Compromise ~ Continuing in ControversyBy Senator Kathleen Vinehout“Whatever you do,” the elderly woman in Gilmanton told me a few years ago, “Keep your government-run hands off my Medicare.”Medicare and Medicaid turned 50 years old on July 30, 2015. After decades of political leaders grappling on the issue of health care, it was in 1965, that then President Lyndon Johnson signed Medicare and Medicaid into law.Today we take for granted what was a seminal political accomplishment. Medicare, a federally run program, provides health care for those over 65 through a Social Security payroll tax. Medicaid, a ...