Health & Human Services Printing Service history

1870: After scandals regarding mismanagement at the Marine Hospital Fund, the system is restructured as the Marine Hospital Service.7 Congress creates a dedicated agency to administer the MHS, and the following year a Supervising Surgeon (later Surgeon General) is appointed.

Relocated to Washington, D.C. in 1891, it gradually expands into today's National Institutes of Health.

1902: The Biologics Control Act gives the federal government responsibility for monitoring the manufacture and sale of medicinal products used by doctors.

1909: President Theodore Roosevelt holds a White House Conference on Dependent Children, or children dependent on charities and public assistance.10 Three years later, Congress establishes a Children's Bureau in the Department of Labor, which focuses on child labor and related issues.

1921: The Bureau of Indian Health Affairs is created, the forerunner of today's Indian Health Service.

1934: President Franklin Roosevelt's Committee on Economic Security recommends the creation of three programs: old-age insurance, unemployment insurance, and public assistance for low-income elderly persons and families with dependent children.

1944: The Public Health Service Act creates the Office of the Surgeon General, the National Institutes of Health, and other new government bureaus.

1946: The Communicable Disease Center is established and later becomes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The Cabinet-level Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) was created under President Eisenhower, officially coming into existence April 11, 1953.

1960: President Dwight Eisenhower signs into law the Kerr-Mills Act, which authorizes federal aid to the states for elderly medical care.

1963: The Clean Air Act authorizes the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare to give grants to local air pollution agencies.

1966: The Department of Health, Education, and Welfare is a sprawling organization overseeing 210 different programs, of which 60 were created in just the prior three years.22

1969: The Office of Child Development is created by the merging of the Children's Bureau and Head Start.

1970: A National Health Service Corps is created to subsidize rural health care.

1974: The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act authorizes grants to the states for various child abuse programs.

HEW became the Department of Health and Human Services, officially arriving on May 4, 1980.

1981: President Ronald Reagan proposes turning Medicaid into a block grant program to control costs.

The Senate passes the proposal but it is dropped in conference with the House.28 1987: Congress adds a special hospitals subsidy to Medicaid to aid facilities that serve large numbers of uninsured patients.

Originally, Part A is projected to cost $9 billion by 1990, but it ends up costing $67 billion that year.19

1993: The Clinton administration, led by first lady Hillary Clinton, drafts a plan for a vast and complex expansion of federal health care.

1996: Congress enacts major welfare reform.

The Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Improvement Act of 1999 was signed, making it possible for millions of Americans with disabilities to join the workforce without fear of losing their Medicaid and Medicare coverage.

Competition from the private venture spurs the government to speed up the timetable of its own project, and the two projects race to the finish line with a rough draft of the human genome in 2000.

19 Joint Economic Committee, "Are Health Care Reform Cost Estimates Reliable?" July 31, 2009.