Medicaid was created by Congress in 1965, and focused on providing health care benefits to recipients of certain cash assistance programs. More than four decades of incremental policy expansion have made it the largest government health program-providing benefits to more people and at a higher cost than Medicare.
Economy
Don’t Fence Me In: Lianne’s Story
Family, then finances—and opportunity. Those are what brought Lianne Halpern back to tiny Shamrock, a small, dusty stop on the famous Route 66 in the Texas panhandle. Like generations of Americans before, Lianne and her family had traveled west along that route in search of the golden promises of California. Lianne’s father worked in the...
January 29, 2026