david shreve, what is a live pair?> a eentleman'sgreement that was periodically used during this time in congress. in this case what it amounted to, what it always announce to is when the is an absent senator for who you know that senator's position, in this case they were referring to senator kennedy, a supporter of medicare, if you could hear that senator, absent senator with a presence senator, both of whom would agree not to vote, the absence senator could not the present senator agreeing not to vote caring essentially offsetting one against the other, one supporter against one opponent, what they were essentially asking the opponents to do was not to vote but to pair instead. >> historian david shreve, we little later. later on september 2nd, 1964, as you heard us discuss, the senate does approve the medicare amendment on a vote of 49-44. september 3rd, lbj and larry o'brien talk about the next steps for the measure. you will hear mentions of house speaker john mccormack, carl albert, a majority hale boggs and rep

we're joined again by historian and author david shreve. mr. is going on committee at this point? explain what the suggestion of sending it to the committee without structions. what does that mean? >> with or without instructions, this debate has to do with whether or not the administration and the house leadership speaker mccormack, congressman from massachusetts, would be willing or -- would put pressure on mills in the conference committee. the prescription that -- that the administration had at this point was that -- mills was going to vote against accepting the senate amendment and he would likely be joined by the other two republican house conferees which would give them a majority on the house side. and cecil king and boggs and the other two democratic house conferees likely to support the amendment. so the prediction we heard earlier, many think is likely to come true. that is chairman mills joining with the republican opposition to depeat what the -- essentially the democratic position was. and would be. going with instructions simply

david shreve and currently working on a book called "american promise." mr. , described the provision of the social security amendments johnson signed. >> we will listen to johnson signing the medicare amendments on july 30, 1965. this was characterized by a three-layer cake design, and we will learn about how that came to be in some of these calls here. what'd comprised was a hospital insurance program which was the core of element of medicare plans over the years. a second part which was doctor's insurance for physicians' bills, etc., which was added on late in the process. then what we know as medicaid today, which was an expansion of an act of congress in 1969. we have three parts to it. the most controversy rural and long-running part was the first part, the hospital insurance. >> what similarities and differences should we be listening for in the process and the current administration's efforts on legislation? >> one similarity we will pickup on ridley is how lpga in 1964 and 1965 and kennedy before him, had to play off one house of the congress against

we conclude our special lbj program about medicare, we get a few final thoughts from historian david shreve. please summarize what happened to the medicare legislation after march 23, 1965, the date of this lt call we heard. >> without getting tangled up into many other details, because there were a number of changes, the bill did emerge pretty much as it had emerged to this int out of the ways and means committee. however, it's probably worth noting that when they went to conference and the senate didn't ask for change and ended up having to go to a conference committee as well, they had to reconcile about 500 changes betwn the two houses. so there were a number of changes. typical of tse is the 60 days that they cited for hospital coverage was expanded to 90. that was one fairly prominent change. and they kept going back and forth with the taxate and how they were going to do that. it is worth pointing out that some of this discussion here, there was one point where mills referred to a discussion he had with gartner ackley, chairman of the economic advisers a kermit gordon who was directo