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Another Medicare Monster

Almost 40 years ago, Wilbur Mills, then Democratic chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, delivered a farsighted speech to the Arkansas-Missouri District Kiwanis Convention. His speech was in September of 1964, and his topic was pending legislation that would establish the Hospitalization portion, or Part A, of Medicare.

Mills opposed the legislation. He anticipated the program's growth and the ever-increasing taxes that would be needed to finance it. This summer, as Congress considers the biggest single expansion...

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