The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1949-06-30
When People Know

The American Medical Assocations NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.
offensive against President rumans national health lnsur
program is rapidly taking form the most brazen
attempt to flood the nation with false and misleading propa
ganda since the heyday of the old utility mob.
Whitaker Baxter the public relations firm whose tao
tics strategy Nathan Robertson anazed for readers OF
The Progressive in the May ISSUE have unveiled more OF
the program by which their Client the ANA, hopes to crush
the to give the people OF the United States the poLec
tion of health insurance.
Step No. is national application of the California ex-
perience In that state Whitaker Baxter were hired 10
beat Governor Warrens state health insurance program
They bought minimum of 100 coumnncheS IN each OF I0O
newspapers and then proceeded to collect IN return free pup
cty 'far beyond anything expected At national con
ference of state medical societies in Chicago recently the
publicity firm proclaimed the national strategy to be this
1--WE intend to work with the great newspapers ana ma
tona magazines get them do special jobs and that work
is already well started Once article has been printed re-
prints will be placed the hands OF key people to be dSt
buted thruout the country.
Step No is to locate the principal physician of every
congressman and t. s. senator and have him the
physciansend personal letter to his patent-the con,
accommodating him of the danger of socalzed medicine
This crude exploitation of physicianpatent relationship
for political lobbying purposes does not end there Tor step
No would make every doctors office by loading it with
Whitaker Baxter leaflets and photographs precinct
While doctors would thus be armed with hand douts pre-
pared by the AMAs public relations counseos they would
be discouraged from using their minds in public Whit
aker Baxter have directed physicians to avoid TOO
many debates on the health insurance issue.
1t is heartening tribute to the horse sense of the Am
ercan people that they than the prescribed gam OF
salt when confronted with ANA propaganda propaganda
by the way which the British Medical Association has twice
the British medical program.
The American Druggist recently published the resulth
two significant posboh suppressed by the which
is "dong special Jobs for the ANA the American Druggist
is opposed to national health insurance 1t hired potak-
ing firm which is also opposed to the Presidents program
The firm poled 1500 presidents and program charmen OF
citizens organizations with combined membership OF 40
million. The results:
OF those who took position 67 per cent said they fa
vored national health insurance OF those with knowledge
of the Truman program" 70 per cent favored it.
The American Druggist also took postcard poll OF =,
pharmacists. The results showed that II cent favor
ed compulsory health insurance - double the number OF
three years ago And here significantly the magazine
pointed out with alarm "Ihe the retail druggist knows
about the Truman proposal the likely he is to favor
it,"
The results of these polls to extraordinarily i'm
pressive What strikes most hopeful in the findings OF
hostile journal the fact that when people know the facts
when they know that the Presidents program does not
sociazed medicine; when they know that it leaves
physcans free to choose reject patients they do noW
or free to decline to under the program altogether
when they know that retains for patients complete free
dom of choice of physican when they know will mean
program of vastly expanded hospital construction, more
medical facilities and owcost insurance protecton-When
they know what in the program they support by over
Whelming majorities.