Health to All

If Americans have recognized their social problems in the slums and the South, they have always held the country's medicine in profound respect. Within the world of health they left the American Medical Association reigning supreme, controlling the licencing of physicians and dictating restrictions on public health insurance. Professionally the AMA has undoubtedly maintained the highest standards, but its disciplined financial lobby has consistently exerted pressure against measures which, while giving medical security to more people, might dent the doctors' income.

During the Second World War, for the first time, the country learned that the medical system, always assumed exemplary, actually left one-half of the young men in the country unqualified for active military service. Economic barriers prevent much of the population from getting proper medical attention.

True, since 1932 over fifty million Americans have joined either a hospital or surgical insurance plan such as Blue Cross and Blue Shield; a smaller number have enrolled in corporation "group insurance" plans like Harvard's, which include physician's services as well.

But 48 percent of the population cannot afford membership in an insurance program, the President's Commission on the Health Needs of the Nation reported in 1952. Charity hospitals for the needy too often add insult to injury. More serious still, those with enough money to pay for ordinary expenses cannot qualify for admission to free hospitals, yet they can afford neither illness nor the high premiums of health insurance.

Even with a miracle of free service, many would have difficulty getting assistance. For every seven hundred citizens there is one physician, a ratio worse than in the 'twenties, before the Renaissance of medicine. By 1960 America will be short 35,000 doctors.

British Medical Program

Because of these deficiencies in the American health program, Britain's compulsory health insurance plan has received considerable study. The famous "socialized medicine," as the AMA refers to it, is financed by percentage paycheck deductions. For their money Britains get attention from doctors of their choice, hospitalization and surgery, dental work, drugs, spectacles, and false teeth. The Minister of Health noted: "Rugged Britain has become a nation of pill-swallowers."

Even so, the British revere their health program. Conservatives endorse it, and doctors--if pressed--will admit the advantages of compulsory health insurance. "We are treating for the first time patients with diseases rampant for years," one doctor stated. "No wonder our offices are crowded--the people who used to die unnoticed are getting some attention."

Professional dissatisfaction with the plan is largely because of low salaries (about $8,000). Doctors cannot afford secretaries to fill out the many cards and forms demanded by the Local Executive Health Councils.

Nationalization of British medicine in 1948 was not a wild-eyed innovation: the country had operated under a state insurance plan since 1917. The old program, which covered only workers and not their families, prepared the way for "socialized medicine."

The United States would not accept such a revolutionary plan at the present time. Even one of the most ardent adherents of compulsory health insurance, ex-President Truman, has stated that it would be better to try state "group insurance" plans instead, with the national and state governments providing premiums for those unable to pay.

Truman's Commission on Health Needs also recommended federal assistance to states ("grants-in-aid") for medical school construction, research, and scholarships. The Commission's plan, while avoiding much of Britain's detailed paper work, would provide better medical care for the country, vesting authority in the hands of elected officials instead of the AMA.

But the final Eisenhower program, submitted to Congress two weeks ago, embraces none of the Health Commission's recommendations. Instead it will protect the voluntary health insurance companies from unusual losses due to chronic or epidemic diseases--a plan similar to the government's financial safeguard for banks. Insurance companies could then afford to take on poorer risks--aged people with such ailments as rhemmatism, arthritis, tuberculosis, and heart diseases. But the program would lower rates little, leaving nearly one-half the nation unable to afford protection. And the Eisenhower plan makes no provision for increasing the flow of doctors from medical schools.

The Commission on the Health Needs of the Nation has shown that America's health program is grossly inadequate. No Administration can boast about its health program unless it provides two things: aid to those now unable to afford proper medical care, and the extra doctors needed to treat them.