After the close vote in the Senate in July 1962 on the Javits-Anderson
Amendment, Medicare advocates needed to retrench in order to prepare
a program with improved chances of clearing Congress. The year 1963
was one of planning. No one in the Kennedy Administration believed
that a Medicare bill would come up for a vote in Congress that year.
There were serious doubts that either the House Ways and Means Com-
mittee or the Senate Finance Committee would even hold hearings on
a health insurance bill for the elderly. The Kennedy Administration's
primary emphasis was on tax revision and inflation. The most optimistic
members of the White House and HEW staff were predicting that a bill
would come up for a vote in 1964. ¹

In the meantime, the campaign for Medicare had to be kept alive if
only because the AMA was spending 2 million dollars a year on its
crusade against "socialized medicine." Public support of Medicare was
waning. The latest Gallup poll, taken in the Fall of 1962, showed public
support of Medicare at only 43 percent. Interest peaked briefly in the
Winter: On January 9, 1963, the public listed Medicare second on a
list of issues that they were most concerned about. (Taxes were number
one.) However, the resurgence was fleeting. By April, the public was
concerned about Cuba and Berlin, and Medicare was not even men-
tioned. The same was true of another Gallup survey taken in October
1963. At that point the main issue on the public's mind was racial
disturbances. Again, Medicare was not mentioned as a priority. ²

The press interpreted the Congressional atmosphere in an altogether
different way. The Wall Street Journal predicted that Medicare would

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