The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1949-09-08
BiemiIIer Exposes
Hoax On Truman's
Health Insurance

Health Insurance
Washington (LPA)-The Ameri-
can Medical Assn was on one OF
the hottest spots it had ever faced
this week as the result of the dis
closure in the House by Rep. An
drew Biemiller Cd, Wis., that one
of it's favorite bits of propaganda
against President Truman's health
insurance program was pure
hoax.
The ANA has spread through
out the country propaganda telling
the American people that V. l.
Lenin, the father of Soviet COM
munism, once said that "socialized
medicine is the keystone of the arch
of the socialistic state" This
phrase lent authority to their
charge that the Presidents health
insurance program was "socialized
medicine"
Supporters of the Presidents s
program have long suspected that
this quotation was a hoax dreamed
up by the Natl Physicians Com
mittee, the now discredited and
disbanded lobbying arm of the
ANA. They have had scholars
working for months to determine
whether there was any basis for
such a quotation and the research
ers all reported in the negative.
But there was always the pos
sibility that the ANA had some
authority the scholars couldn't find
in Lenin's voluminous writings.
Last week the ANA was nakedly
exposed of taking the quote and
perpetrating a fraud on the people
of this country by circulating it in
the face of skepticism about its
authenticity.
The evidence was laid before the
House in speech by Rep. Biemil-
Ter, one of the authors of the ma
tional health insurance bill pend
ing in Congress. He read to the
House a letter from DR.. K. H.
Doege, president of the Wisconsin
State Medical Society, admitting
that the ANA had no documenta-
tion for the quotation and alibing
apologetically that "many of US go
through life attributing express
sions to certain persons without
ever having any primary basis for
the quotation" DR.. Doege's letter
to Biemiller said:
81 finally received report from
& Baxter, of the Natl
Education Campaign Committee of
the ANA dated August IL. Accord
ing to Mr.. Tod Bates, who signed
the letter, the quotation is from
page 27 of Lawrence Sullivan's
book, entitled The Case Against
Medicine published by
the Statesman Press, of Washing
ton, D. C. Apparently Whitaker
and Baxter have made an effort to !
go behind the quotation in the Sui
Iivan book but, because of trans !
lation difficulties, the enormous
quantity of material by the pro-
life Lenin to be examined, and the
fact that the statement may have
been made orally and never COM !
nitted to record, they have not yet
oeen able to provide chapter and
verse for this quotation"
Biemiller took his evidence to
he floor because only a few days
before Rep. A. L. Miller (R, Neb.),
/ doctor, had used the AMA's
,honey Lenin quote on the floor OF
he house.
A recent Whitaker & Baxter
scare pamphlet, "The Voluntary
Way is the American Way" re-
,eats the faxed quotation, Biemil-
er added. ',
Biemiller said the use of this /,
,honey quote was a danger to
American institutions" because
health insurance instead
# being the same as socialized
Medicine is "our only bulwark
against socialized medicine" 1t is
lsed, he said, to confuse the issue.
lie appealed for those debating the
ssue of health insurance to call
by it's true name, instead of "soc-
allied medicine" asking if we
allied our public school system
socialized education" just because
t happened to be compulsory.
Expressing faith in the integrity
# the medical profession, Biemiller