Newsreel footage was shown of President Lyndon Baines Johnson signing a Medicare bill into law on July 30, 1965. That legislation was part of President Johnson’s “Great Society” initiative. President Harry S. Truman had previously pushed lawmakers to create a national health insurance plan. At the bill-signing ceremony at the Truman Presidential Library, President Johnson enrolled former President Truman as the first Medicare beneficiary and presented him with the nation’s first Medicare card.