Imperial Valley press., 1945-04-12
DEFERRING HEALTH BILL
SOUND SUGGESTION
{ (RiverSide Daily PreSs)

By the time these lines reach the read
er, the state assembly may have succeed
ed, as was foreshadowed in dispatches
yesterday, in withdrawing compulsory
state insurance bills from the health in
surance committee. Plans were being
made to include specifically the COVER
nor'S bill and that favored by the state
CIO council.
1t was also indicated that resolution
would be presented to delay action on
health insurance while further interim
study is made The plan contemplates an
appropriation of SIS, 1000 for an assembly
committee which would report to the gov
ernor within eight months of the adjourn
ment of the legislature.
At the rate people are enrolling in the
various health plans, reported to be
about 100000 a month throughout the
state, it would appear that the question
of kcalh insurance may resolve itself long
before any of the compulsory payroll de-
ductiOn programs force the issue polite
ally.
One qualified commentator points out
that 100000 Californians made up their
minds in the past year to insure their
health as they do their liveS-on a vOlun-
tary, prepaid basis. Eighty per cent of all
employers, according to figures submit
ted at the public hearings, today provide
hospital and sickness benefits for their
employees.
Individuals enrolled under voluntary
health plans now approximate three mil
Ion. The California Physicians Service
alone reports gross gains from ten to fif-
teen thousand a month.
While Governor Warren has not de-
manded legislative acceptance of his
health insurance plan, being interested in
tie objective of prepayment of medical
care and not the method. he has eX-
pressed Indignation over the unfriendly
attitude of the health committee, charg-
ing that it had given his bill ''the brush
off"
There is one phase of the question that
seems to have been overlooked in the
sound and fury of the discussion by those
in military service, comprising more than
one-third of all physicians in the United
States. They are also the younger and
physically fit doctors, upon whom the
success or failure Of any future medical
plan will depend to large extent
Physicians in the service contend that
it is not true in California that large
number of people who reed medical care
cannot get it. They maintain that the
United States, and especially California,
has the highest medical standards in the
world
A casual examination Of the figures
pertaining to the number of men rejected
for military service shows that approx
mately 80 per cent of the reflections are
for mental disease, illiteracy, faulty nu-
triton, refractive errors. dental defects,
deformi.ieS, congenital defects and SIM
liar conditions.
Can these defects be influenced by any
of the proposed medical plans? Any in
ference that doctors are responsible for
these reflections plainly falls down.
1t is apparent little, if anything, has
Eoen said to emphasize the fact that the
so-called high cost of medical care is not
the fees paid to the doctor, but the hos
pital bills, which have to be paid cash
on the line"
Now we're in a position to work over
the Jap forces at our leisure a. the least
possible cost to ourselves. 1t will be a