The "why" is relatively simple. "Old" at the time of Medicare's passing meant the Lost Generation, which was A. generally quite poor thanks to having spent their prime earning years in the Great Depression and B. didn't live all that long (My great grandfather of that generation died at the age of 70. His son, my grandfather, lived to see 86.).
Meanwhile, aside from free public education (which is in fact a large socialization of childrearing, albeit one done for the purpose of producing productive adults) I don't think childcare was something specifically on the radar at the time (as opposed to poverty in general) in large part because the standards of childrearing were quite a bit lower at the time (Another interesting question: Which has been subject to more expectation inflation? Parenting or eldercare?).
In the long term, this has become a problem due to demographics, inflation of expectations (in terms of Social Security benefits, but most acutely healthcare expenditures), and the emergence of a mass affluent upper-middle class of elderly capable of lobbying on its own behalf that arguably didn't exist before, say, the Silent Generation's retirement.
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The "why" is relatively simple. "Old" at the time of Medicare's passing meant the Lost Generation, which was A. generally quite poor thanks to having spent their prime earning years in the Great Depression and B. didn't live all that long (My great grandfather of that generation died at the age of 70. His son, my grandfather, lived to see 86.).
Meanwhile, aside from free public education (which is in fact a large socialization of childrearing, albeit one done for the purpose of producing productive adults) I don't think childcare was something specifically on the radar at the time (as opposed to poverty in general) in large part because the standards of childrearing were quite a bit lower at the time (Another interesting question: Which has been subject to more expectation inflation? Parenting or eldercare?).
In the long term, this has become a problem due to demographics, inflation of expectations (in terms of Social Security benefits, but most acutely healthcare expenditures), and the emergence of a mass affluent upper-middle class of elderly capable of lobbying on its own behalf that arguably didn't exist before, say, the Silent Generation's retirement.
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