The people's voice., 1957-07-05


Five years ago, DR.. James H. Means
of the Massachusetts, General Hospital
pointed out that "Blue Shield added
to Blue Cross does not really consti-
tute comprehensive health plan; and
most important, the two together
make no provisions for preventive
medicine.''
Significant items of expense are
still generally considered uninsurable
Dental care is as urgent, eXpen-
sive, and difficult to budget for many
families as hospital, surgical, or medi-
cal care. Yet the voluntary insurers
and the dental profession have barely
begun their first cautious studies of
the possibilities of prepayment and
group plans.
The l 5 million Americans over
age 65 find themselves with limited or
shrinking insurance protection, or en-
tlrely excluded from health insurance,
at the very period in life when they
have the most need for medical serv-
ices and are least able to budget for
the cost.
Others who, with their depend
ents, generally cannot share the ad-
vantages of group insurance but must
rely on higher-cost individual insur-
ance or none at all include farm fam
lilies, the self-employed, employees of
small firms in many communities,
domestic workers, migratory farm
workers, the three million unem-
ployed, and those persons whose
health is already impaired to a de-
gree that interferes with regular en-
ployment in an insurable group.
While health insurance benefit pay
ments in 1866 (the latest year report
ed) were nearly one-sixth higher than
in 1854, the need was climbing almost |
as fast. The Department of Health,
and Welfare reports that
The rise in benefits was "only suffi-
cient to increase by 1.8 percentage
points the coverage of the national
medical care bill"
"If the costs of medical care con-
inue to rise," says the Department,
the volume of benefits must increase
even more if the same level of pro-
ection previously afforded is to be
In achieving it's recent expansion,
voluntary insurance has skinned the
ream. If one considers the people
md the types of risk now denied in
urance, it becomes clear the 1855
ate of expansion cannot possibly be
maintained. But assume it could con-
inue: it would be 80 years or more
986 or later-before voluntary in
urance covered substantially all the
expenses considered by the Depart
1ent to be potentially insurable,"
e., the fees of physicians, hospitals,
entists, and nurses, and one-third of
expenditures for drugs and appli-
noes.
Thirty years is long time to wait
hen an effective solution is already
hand.
Our medical care problem arises
from inequalities: inequalities in in
comes, in the needs for health serv-
ices, in the availability of insur- +,
ance protection, in the ready avail
ability of medical services. I'm
proved services are technically feas-
ble. The need for action is in the Q
financing and distribution of serv- a
ces. Timid and temporizing pro- S
oosals, like the Eisenhower Admin a
stration's flimsy plan for reinsur- S
ance, will not make a dent on the e
problem. l.
The health services which people u
ust now forego are not reflected in :
e totals of current expenditures for ''
,alth care. They do not even get
to the national income accounts, ex- p
pt in negative sort of way, for ii
ey represent tremendous, ire p
ievable loss of productive power, tt
wering the national income below it
hat it would otherwise be. Short G.
rm non-occupational illness and dis in
'ility alone were responsible for rs
age losses estimated at $6.6 billion p,
1855. Add income losses from al
ng-t r m affliction, premature vi
aths, and work-connected disabil- til
T, and the amount becomes several hi
so oe Io,oor