The result was the passage in 1960 of the Kerr-Mills bill, which provided federal funding to the states to help meet the health costs of the rapidly increasing elderly portion of America’s population. Yet this very mild form of relief was all that the AMA would tolerate, and it wielded its political might in getting the defeat of the 1961 King-Anderson Bill, which would have paid hospitalization costs for the country's aged through the social security system.