The Washington times., 1939-01-28
PARRAN PLACES
ILLNESS COST
AT 10 BILLION
Holds Better Health Key
To u. S. Welfare
Continued from Page III

To help make this possible
Federal grants-in-aid to the ex-
tent. of 200 million dollars will
be needed. This sum would be
matched dollar for dollar by the
States.
A TTENTION must be given
"A also to the medical needs of
that very large fraction of the
population with annual incomes
running between $1,000 and $3,-
900 year. These are the farm
ers and city wage earners of our
country who can probably fl
nance their doctor bills for
coughs, colds and measles, and
the like. but when serious and
long illness strikes the family
they are likely to find that such
illness constitutes an economic
catastrophe. This is, of course,
particularly true when is strikes
the family breadWinner. Ways
can be fostered to budget against
these risks of illness. These
risks are much less of a burden
when some provision is made be-
fore the illness strikes.
These various provisions Of
the national health program
give definite assurance of better
health for America. They pro-
pose no new and untried govern
mental action. They contem.
plate the putting of medical sci
ence to work for all of the people
without any change in our basic
form of medical practice. They
recognize the continued local
responsibility for health with
State and Federal leadership,
financial assistance and tech
nical standards. They seek to
improve quality no less than the
amount of health and medical
services. They propose the en-
couragement of research to con-
troll in the future those causes
of disease and death which now
BATTLE us. They call upon all
the resources of the community
to participate in a concerted at
tack on suffering, disablement,
and death-and on principal
cause of poverty and depend
ency.
The national health program
does not propose the federaliza-
ton of medicine, nor does it pro-
pose regimenting the practice of
medicine, nor Federal operation
of State and local programs.
1t does propose the Socialization
of more of the costs of health
protection and medical care "a
process which has been going
on in this country for years..
It proposes Federal aid to State
and local governments for pro-
grams developed by them, with
professional guidance, to meet
their community health and
medical needs.
This is a long-range program
to be developed in an evolution
ary manner over at least a TO-
year period.
AS for the cost of the national
health program, it is important
to remember that WE NOW
SPEND MORE FOR THE END
RESULTS! We have been talk
ing about a program to save
life and health which would go
into operation on a modest scale.
which would gradually increase
in scope, in facilities, in trained
personnel, until after 10 years,
it reached the peak of eXpendi-
ture with the Federal share
about 425 millions, and the same
for States and localities. This
total amounts to less than two
cents per person per day, a sum
not quite as much as it is eSti-
mated is now paid for medical
and institutional care, for pen
sions and relief, when the dam
age of disease is done!
For example, the program an
ticipates the stamping out of
syphilis as a public health prob
lem in a single generation. We
now pay 10 million dollars year
in pensions to those blind be-
cause of syphilis, and $33, ,500,-
600 to care for those insane be-
cause of it. If such a program
proposed only to eliminate syph-
Ills it would be self-liquidating.
It proposes to do other things
to eradicate tuberculosis as a
public health problem; to keep
mothers and babies from dying;
to develop a race of Americans
physically and mentally fit.
When we remember the other
conditions which would be mini
mizeG by this vigorous, con-
tinued attack along the whole
front of scientific medicine, I
think I need not belabor the
point that it's costs during the
evolutionary period Of 10 years
would simply be a transfer
from one pocket to the other.
Instead of paying for a dead
horse, we would be buying feed
for a young colt.
These are the several ways in
which the national health pro-
gram reaches out to touch the
lives of every man, woman and
child. To the individual phySi-