The people's voice. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1939-1969, 1940-01-03
Health Councils
Are Advocated

a leading article on public health, by
DeKruif, an instalment in a series now
some time running; in it are certain
new-sounding ideas. For one thing, il
asks for a great deal OF. government
money, which looks like a new line for
the Curtis enterprise; also it insists
that the entire country needs to be
lorganized into local health councils
If this can be done so that the coun-
ellis remain active in the performance
of actual public services, it will be
the finest accomplishment in the ma
tons history; there is nothing we
need so desperately as that.
But in his opening paragraph, De-
Kruif demands that something be
done about the recent indictment of
the ANA in the Group Health case,
and the nature in detail of these de-
mands is not clear.
| Co-operators will recall the facts of
the Group Health case, which arose
directly out of the facts in the Farm
els' Union case at Elk City, where
| the ANA sought for a matter of 10
years to blackball, Gas we in common
language should say, the staff OF the
co cooperative hospital. These efforts
failed to the extent that the co-opera-
tive is going concern, its rian of
organization is now studied in every
part of the country, and it is the only
enterprise of it's kind in the United
States, for the one reason that a good
cooperative community is necessary
to such service, and such comnmni-
ties are still scarce. Then when an
organization of federal employees in
the District of Columbia set out to
form an enterprise based on the Elk
City experience, the ANA there black
balled not the staff alone but the
membership as well; it, that is, the
news of that time was credible. The
attorney general sought and obtained
an indictment of certain ANA officers
under the antitrust act, and the trial
judge threw out the case on a ruling
that the antitrust act had no appli-
cation to these defendants in this case
again we are indebted to the GUS
tomary news sources.
This paper might do a public serv-
ice by tracing down in Washington
the detailed facts and the present
status of the case.
Throughout the period of the Elk
City and Group Health cases the ANA
heads have published, and are now
statements that they are
a movement to set UP a tax
paid medical service under political
control; and it is now a proper time
to take notice that under the familiar
system which the ANA upholds, a
-uinous share of our entire medical
service has come to be tax-paid, under
political control; while the procedure
snvisioned by DeKruif must necessar-
ly bring an even larger part of the
otal service under those auspices.
And it is certain that this paper can
assemble proofs of the singular free
ION from these evils to be found
among our few cooperative health
lnits.
Men who attain high office in the
ANA are fairly certain to have lived
lnder very exceptional conditions, as
with people whose life-out-
ook has little in common with that of
he folks we ordinarily meet. There
S little doubt that one of our neigh
,ors, having lived under the same
onditions, might have reported the
ELK City litigation so as to startle an
ELK City man that knew the facts at
irst hand-which was the actual effect
those ANA announcements.
If a system of local health councils
) imposed by high authority on the
eople of our communities, it can be
ct up quickly, and it will bring us
lore, and worse, and costlier, of the
anne troubles that afflict us at pres
nt Our chief difficulty today is that
70 have an enormous volume of body
epairs to make; and between the I'M
earable cost of the repairs, and the
helplessness of the body
lat needs repairs, we have at last
sginning to pinch themselves-they
mt make living either, and De-
ruff has come to admit it.
On the other hand if these coun-
Is can grow up out of the alert, re-
)onsible interest of their member.
lip, there will be ears to listen when
'ecialists explain why the volume of
,dy repairs is so great, and how best
cut it down; for matter of fifty
,ars they have been trying to tell us
at close air in homes, food too dense
ID rich to match the labor we do,
i'd the violent haste in which we are
It to wolf down our food have a
eat deal to do with the volume of
eded repairs For a like period the
MA heads have been telling the gen
al public that the business arrange
ants in health matters are the con
IN of the doctors alone, raising their
ices particularly high in the Elk
ty and Group Health cases. And
ey go on wondering why public
ourged from one door of the temple
ould be shy of entering at the other
lie.
The DeKruif articles sound like
I'VE in secret diplomacy when they
mand a complete whitewash of the
IA heads in the cooperative cases.
ey call for vigilance. 1t is when
ysicians and clients meet eye to
2, each group in its proper field of
possibility, that work in public
alth can go forward.-Homer Davis.