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Cummings Pleased To Honor Robert Ball
Congressman sponsors bill, passed by House, to name Social Security building for “father of Medicare.”
(Washington, DC) – Congressman Elijah E. Cummings (MD-07) was pleased today with the passage, by the United States House of Representatives, of H.R. 5773, designating the Social Security Operations Building, located at 401 Security Boulevard in Baltimore, Maryland as the `Robert M. Ball Federal Building'.
Robert “Bob” Ball started working for the newly formed Social Security Board in 1939 as a field assistant in Newark, New Jersey. In 1949, Mr. Ball was appointed Assistant Director of the Bureau of Old Age and Survivors Insurance. He was subsequently promoted to Deputy Director and then Acting Director.
Ball was the architect of the 1950 amendments raising benefits and expanding Social Security coverage to more Americans, including such groups as the self-employed, and making it easier for these groups to begin to qualify for benefits. He also helped draft the legislation establishing Social Security disability benefits in 1956 and helped Members secure its passage even though the Eisenhower administration opposed this change. In 1957, Ball helped Representative Aime Forand draft a bill that was essentially the forerunner of Medicare. Ball continued to advocate for health insurance for seniors from that time until Medicare’s eventual passage in 1965. For this and his subsequent work supporting the implementation of the Medicare program, he is also known as the father of Medicare.
President John F. Kennedy appointed Robert M. Ball as Commissioner of Social Security in 1962, a post in which he diligently served longer than anyone else prior or since. A decade after his appointment, Mr. Ball helped develop the 1972 amendments that linked benefits to inflation, ensuring that Social Security would never fail to meet basic needs.
“Bob Ball was a man who dedicated his career to defending and strengthening Social Security and who helped to expand the safety net for our nation’s seniors by supporting the creation of Medicare,” said Cummings. “His experiences in the field demonstrated that Social Security was a contract between generations, ensuring that seniors could avoid poverty in their later years. I cannot imagine a better tribute to such a man to have his name permanently attached to the building where Social Security operates.”
Robert Ball was described by American Scholar magazine in 2005 as Social Security’s “biggest thinker, longest-serving commissioner and undisputed spiritual leader” and as “Social Security's chief advocate and defender.”
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