My Turn: Biden’s long step towards long-term care AL NORMAN Published: 5/11/2021 6:25:06 PM Back in the early 1980s, I recall meeting U.S. Sen. Claude Pepper of Florida, the elderly rights champion, at a rally of advocates in Cambridge. Pepper told the crowd: “I hope to live long enough to see long-term care become part of the Medicare Program.” Pepper died in 1989 — and his dream has still not come true 32 years later. Federally sponsored health care has been a long time coming. Franklin Roosevelt thought about national health care in 1935. Harry Truman proposed it in 1945. Dwight Eisenhower signed a small program in 1960. JFK proposed his own version in 1961. LBJ took a big bite of it in 1965. Now Joe Biden wants to take a serious shot at expanding long-term care in 2021.