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(Yes, even in the future - getting sick and paying for it will be painful)

(Another in a series of all-day reposts from the archives of Newstalgia on our favorite subject: Health Care)

It's always amazing to hear what the future is going to look like, as viewed from the past. Invariably, all manner of convenience will be commonplace, all menial labor will vanish, all worry about getting sick will still be around.

And who is going to pay for it? Even in 1956, they were scratching their heads. The writing was on the wall - more people on the planet, and more of them getting older and well . . .sicker. The good news was the leaps on modern medicine would be greater (that's happened), but people going broke over receiving those leaps would plague us seemingly forever.

In September of 1956, on the occasion of their annual convention, NBC Radio, via their Monitor series, hosted a panel discussion with members of the American Hospital Association (Albert W. Snoke, Lowell T. Codishall and Chicago Daily News Science Editor Arthur Snider), discussing just what this thing was going to be looking like in the future.

Arthur Snider (Chicago Daily News): “ I think foremost, is and has been for some time the matter of costs. For a considerable time people . . the anger was directed towards hospitals, but now with the introduction of hospital bill . . or hospital insurance plans, we have the matter of increasing premiums. And people now are being a little bit unhappy about that. They say, when they get their bills they could have enjoyed a nice couple of weeks at a fancy hotel for that price. I’m sure that argument is fallacious, I’m sure Dr. Snoke has a thought on that.”

Albert W. Snoke (American Hospital Association): “Everybody gets irritated over having to pay any kind of money for anything. They just don’t enjoy paying out money. I don’t blame them for being concerned about hospital costs and hospital charges. The thing that I’d like to first get clear is that there are two different problems we’re talking about. One is how much does it cost to run a hospital. And next, how much does the patient have to pay when he comes into the hospital. And cost and charges are two different things.”

Bear in mind in 1956 Health Insurance was a relatively new thing, but even in 1956 costs were spiraling out of control. Of course at the time no one thought to lay some blame at the feet of the insurance companies - they were still the new kids on the block.

So now that they've become the bullies of the neighborhood . . .

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(To about 30 million people, this might as well be Mars)

I'm always amazed, listening to news programs of the past, how the concept of the future always appears rosy and without complications. We will all have 20 hour work weeks, we will all have an abundance of cash, the best possible medical care and the latest medical advances at our fingertips. They never quite get around to mentioning that all those things are possible if you have money. To paraphrase one of our lower lifeform pundits;'illness is for rich people'. Sadly, that is probably true.

But in 1958, everything was optimistic and indeed, rosy, as this panel, consisting of Senator Richard Neuberger (D-Oregon), Dr. Nathan S. Kline and Gilbert Kant Medicine Editor of Time Magazine espoused.

Sen. Richard Neuberger (D-Oregon): “I think it’s up to people in positions of political leadership, such as myself, the Foundation (National Health Education Committee) that you just mentioned. People like Dr. Kline (Director of Research, Rockland State Hospital) in Medicine, like you (Richard D. Hepner) and Mr. Kant (Medicine Editor – Time Magazine) in the field of Public Opinion to give the people leadership. I think that they will respond. In my opinion the field of Medical research is our greatest frontier of today. I come from Oregon, a frontier state. I’ve how, in covered wagon days the incidents or the coming down of epidemics of Diphtheria, Scarlet Fever and Smallpox meant death, hopeless death to hundreds of people including many little children and we cluck with pity and sympathy over that. I wonder if fifty years from now people won’t mutter with sympathy and pity of the hopelessness over Cancer in our own period today.”

Yes, fifty years later people do mutter with pity and hopelessness over Cancer. Particularly when you can't get your Health insurance to cover it.

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(Blue Cross to America - Don't Get Sick)

Why don't they get it? Why is it, every time the question of Universal Health Care comes up a wave of hysteria breaks over the country like an Indonesian Tsunami? It's been that way in 1941. It's been that way in 1945. It's been that way in 1948. It's been that way in 1949. It's been that way in 1961. Do I have to go on?

You get the picture - everybody reading this blog gets the picture. Everybody with half a brain gets the picture. And we all know who the enemy is. The ones thumbing their noses and laughing and dreaming hysteria up.

I've been running entries regarding the historic aspect of this argument for months now. I am always turning up new items that point out just how old this question is and just how insane the argument against it has become, and just how scared the Insurance industry has become and how well entrenched they are to wage war.

But in case you were curious to hear more - I found an episode from the radio series "America United" which was moderated by a David Brinkley. This show is from November 13, 1949. It features CIO spokesman Harry Reid (no relation), Nathan Robertson of the Labor Press Association, A.L. Kirkpatrick of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and W.R. Williamson, referred to as a "consulting actuary"(in actuality, a spokesman for the Insurance Industry).

Reid kicks it off:

Harry Reed (CIO): “Well, of course we have arrived at this present situation that confronts us for the simple reason that the group that has assumed responsibility for medical care has completely failed to live up to that responsibility. Any group that assumes responsibility, any voluntary group in our country, is required by the people to carry out the responsibility. The American Medical Association, to which you referred, has stifled the overwhelming desire of the medical profession itself throughout the country to give the people health care. So now the people are turning to the only agency that is left to them and that is the Congress to obtain this needed health care. Inasmuch as Free Enterprise has failed in this instance, we turn to our government for assistance. That is the time-honored method of the American people.”

Sixty years ago. The argument and the fears are the same - exactly the same. Only the faces are different and the check books are fatter.

Other than that. The Health Insurance lobby and their warm regard for people boils down to this - "We like your money - it's you we're not crazy about."

Don't get sick.

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(Health Care - as the rest of the world views us)

On January 29, 1956, NBC Radio, as part of their "New World" series ran a debate on the state of Healthcare in the world and asked the BBC to participate with their take on it. Representing all the interested parties were Aneurin Bevan, Member of Parliament and Labor Party Secretary for Health, Dr. Walter Elliot, Member of Parliament, E. A. Van Steenwyck, spokesman for Blue Cross and Milton Friedman, economist.

Right away, Bevan and Friedman jump into it. Friedman has a condescending tone that drives Bevan right up the wall and clearly there is no willingness on the U.S. to even consider a National Health plan.

Aneurin Bevan: “If you rely upon financial anxieties to keep people away, or to use your own words, ‘not to overuse the scarce services”, such anxieties do not exist for the rich. So they will have access to the services first of all. Is that equitable?

Milton Friedman : “Mister Bevan, I think you are confusing two very different problems. One, is the problem of the general distribution of income among people, which arises with the respect to food, clothes, housing and everything else. Medical care is a minor item . . .

Bevan: “A minor item??

Friedman: “Medical care accounts in your country as well as mine for no more than five percent of the total expenditure on consumption. It accounts in your country as in mine for less than the cost of tobacco plus alcohol”.

Walter Eliot: “Now wait a minute – I’m holding myself in with the greatest of difficulty. I was a doctor. I was on the gate. I compiled these waiting lists, and I can assure you that in a good many cases, people who urgently needed treatment weren’t getting it because there wasn’t a hospital accommodation there. Now, one of our difficulties was this very expansion of hospital accommodation. Do you think in America you can look after this enormously increased hospital accommodation which will admittedly be necessary . . .

Friedman: “We don’t rely on donations to run our hospitals. About 90 percent of all the money spent by our voluntary hospitals comes from patients.”

It more or less slides downhill from there. Needless to say, there is no compromise to be had in this debate, but it's interesting to hear just how enmeshed, even in 1956, the lobbies of big Insurance, Big Pharma and the AMA were with the question of Health for the U.S.

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( . . and then there was that "do nothing Congress" to deal with)

Improved Healthcare and the idea a National Healthcare system were on the Truman Administration agenda since 1945. It became a plank in the platform of the 1948 election and would be something he tried to keep active all the way until his leaving office in 1953.

But even in 1948, when it was a hotly contested issue, the massive lobbying and fearful resistance, every attempt was shot down.

This clip comes from an address on the occasion of Democratic Womens Day on September 27, 1949.

Truman:

“We must also act promptly to improve the health of our nation. The women of the country particularly know, in many areas there are not enough doctors or hospitals, and that many families cannot afford the medical care they need. This administration has proposed a program of improved medical care. Some parts of this program, such as an expanded health care for school children and additional aid for hospital construction have already passed the Senate. Our medical program will mean happier homes, healthier children, greater opportunity for useful lives for all the people.”

And sixty years later, almost to the day . . . .

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(Emergencies are the same, but the arm and the leg are different.)

While I'm digging up material on Medicare (back to 1964), I ran across this documentary from NBC Radio and their monthly Second Sunday series, outlining the state of Health Care in the U.S. from August 11, 1968.

Try not to scream too loudly when you hear the cost of the average doctor visit in 1951, or in 1968 for that matter.

But listening to this, I was made painfully aware of just how broken our system of health care is and just how much damage has been done and ultimately, how long it will take to fix it - even if the current pending Health Care reform makes it into law.

Consider the system was falling apart in 1968 by many accounts. It is unrecognizable today. The culprits are well entrenched and changing a system that worked perfectly fine for them then will take a miracle to undo now. In 1968 the system of Health Insurance as we know it today really took hold in the 1950's. Doctors still made house calls, the AMA was gaining more ground (and even then was viewed with a certain amount of suspicion).

It is almost shocking to see how a system the average American citizen depends on could become so corrupted over such a long period of time. Even more shocking to realize any kind of useful change is being met with such organized resistance so deeply entrenched and with such deep pockets.

Or maybe not.