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Show Public Health Bill Faces Tough Battle in Congress By BAUKHAGE News Analyst and Commentator. WASHINGTON. The dim roar of an approaching battle in congress is being heard over the horizon. The struggle will concern S.1320, the national health insurance and public health bill. . t. This measure was opposed in the last session by an organization formed by the American Medical association which turned out to be, in terms of dollars spent, the biggest lobby in Washington, and that is a record. as much the business of the whole people as freedom from persecution, persecu-tion, censorship, or any of the other restrictions our ancestors came to America to avoid. I won't go into the history of the bill. It was written after years of study, six years of public hearings before congressional committees. Those who have opposed the measure meas-ure have made their chief argument a contention that it would be another anoth-er step toward a socialized state, that it would indeed socialize the medical profession. On point one, the supporters say truthfully "that argument was once raised against the public schools, city water-works, municipal sewage systems, electric light and power plants, which are now accepted as a matter of course." Under the national health insurance insur-ance bill, the federal government would collect the money and manage man-age it along with the social security fund which it does now, disburse it to the states for the services rendered ren-dered by the doctors and approve of the various state set-ups. The actual arrangements for the services of the doctors who would go right on with their private practices as well if they wanted to, would be made between be-tween doctor and patient. The patient, unless his family doctor doc-tor refused to join np, would have his services Just the same, only they wou'd be free. The doctor wouldn't have to accept any patient he didn't want. Part of the money would go to the states for research, medical education and various preventive services. How much would it cost? One and one-half per cent of your j Why does the medical association oppose the bill? Supporters of the legislation say be-""Efv-""1 cause the major-f major-f 1 ity of the doctors, " " . 'si like the majority of the people in i. V the country don,t '1 xs" understand it. -f'x -i . Many doctors I K think it would foul ..""""Siflf UP their practice I " ' i 1 ' medicine with X politics. Many also . ' $ t say it would de- ; stroy normal pa- . J tient-physician re i. in. rgVj lations because BAUKHAGE Patient would have to take what medical treatment he could get on an assembly-line basis. This latter assumption is based on a misapprehension misappre-hension of what is actually in the bill which I'll mention later. The former charge is a prediction predic-tion and can't be answered categor-s categor-s ically. I can understand it. When I was in college, I got a summer Job : on the Chautauqua daily. Chautau- I qua ii a pretty big summer commu- ' j ' nity, and health is important. A I young medical student friend of mine whose father had a pull got the Job of Inspecting cowbarns of farmers farm-ers supplying milk to Chautauqua. I made the rounds with him once. He examined the bovine living conditions con-ditions thoroughly and some were pretty Tile. He made notes and put them in a report recommending that purchases from a particular farmer be suspended until the barns were cleaned up. What happened? Be got a harp call-down from his superior. supe-rior. After that, inspection consisted con-sisted in opening cow-barn doors, holding the nose, and looking the other way. earnings up to $3,600 which your employer would match. If you are self-employed, you would pay three per cent up to $3,600 of your own earnings. And that, say the bill's proponents is no more than you pay now (on the average) to a voluntary group health agency if you belong to one and it's less than you would pay to a private physician. Physicians' rates and mode of payment will be established by the vote of the majority of the physicians physi-cians in the given area or locality. Since the worst shortage of doctors is in rural areas, it is expected that with assurance of adequate pay through the national na-tional insurance fund, more physic'ans will be attracted to those areas. Also the fund will help to expand local public health services, rural hospital and 'ambulance service. Aside from the poorer health in farm communities, maternal mortality mor-tality is higher and, as every farmer farm-er knows, accidents are high. There are 54 deaths per 100,000 population on farms, only 20 per 100,000 in industry. in-dustry. In the controversy over this measure meas-ure both sides point to the experience experi-ence of other countries. They claim the national insurance system was inaugurated in Germany in 1883. One American Medical association member says medical care declined under it. He probably knows more about it than I, but the statement was certainly a surprise. Similar complaints have been made against a similar plan which has just been inaugurated in Britain. Bri-tain. But a recent poll taken in England Eng-land says 91 per cent of the physicians physi-cians have joined up which would seem to show they approved of the way it works even if they opposed it in the beginning. And the people voted it the most popular measure passed by the present government. The British Medical association did not oppose the bill as a whole but fought against certain portions, particularly par-ticularly those which they thought might make them "servants of the state." These facts I have checked as nearly as I can and I do not believe they will be disputed. As to the opinions, opin-ions, they remain as such. And you can't look into the future. From what I can learn, the supporters of the bill believe that it will be one of the first introduced in the new congress, con-gress, that it will reach the floor by February and that the chances for its passage are good. Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwy-rndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwy-rndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch is said by the National Geographic Society Soci-ety to be the longest place-name in the world. But it's no good for a cress-word puzzle. ' Coconut chips are now available in five-ounce tins. They may be used as snacks for bridge parties, but the red, white and blue ones still will be preferred for poker. i ' You'U never find a sandpiper and a fiddler crab playing in the same orchestra. That happened many years ago, and I have heard that Chautauqua county is noted for its model dairies, j ' But there is always a lurking sus- picion that when a politician puts his finger in the pie it turns sour. ; ; The only specific answer to this charge of politics that I have discovered dis-covered is one offered in a pamphlet 1 gotten out by the Federation of i Women's Clubs which says: "the ! plan allows for the representation ! of the people paying for it." ; Perhaps a better answer lies In j the fact that the American Federa- j tion of Labor and the CIO, both of whose leaders know just about as much about how politically-controlled institutions operate as any organization heads in the country, favor the bill. It has been supported by many individual doctors and by the Physicians Forum, and the Committee of Physicians for the Improvement of Medical Care, j But what is "it," this national J health insurance bill? Are you fa- i miliar with its purpose, what it pro poses to do and how it proposes to I do it? i Let's go back. What was the most I ghocking revelation in the World War II draft statistics? I'd be will- j lng to bet the thing that most pain- 1 fully surprised the whole country was that one-third of our youth of military age was unhealthy. ! Out of fifteen million regis trants, five million were rejected re-jected for physical or mental disabilities. Rural residents as a group were even less healthy. Forty-one out of each 100 rural registrants were turned down as 4-Fs. It had been hist the op-; op-; j posite in World War I when ! ; farmers outdistanced city folk I j in good health. J j From these figures, we suddenly ! I discovered that the American youth wasn't such a hale and hearty individual in-dividual as we had thought. Later, ss you may not know, we learned that 325.000 Americans die every 1 year who could be saved with prop- ; ( er medical care. About twenty per cent of our people peo-ple can afford all the medical care they need. Half our families those with an Income of $3,000 a year or less find it hard, if not impossible to pay for even routine medical care. Thirty per cent of onr families fami-lies in the $3,000 to $5,00O-a-year bracket would have to go Into debt or make other sacrifices sacri-fices to meet the cost of severe or chronic illness. So you can see why America is twenty-three per cent unhealthy. From the beginning Americans have believed that sound minds are the responsibility of the state, hence the public school system. A sound ; mind isn't much good in an unsound i body. So, say the supporters of the national health insurance bill, it is logical and thoroughly in keeping with American principles to tax everybody ev-erybody so that everybody can get medical care. They argue that freedom free-dom from persecution by germs is |