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Author : Williams Robert Henry
Title : The untold story of medicine
Year : 1948

Link download : Williams_Robert_Henry_-_The_untold_story_of_medicine.zip

Did you ever have unexpected sickness in your family and have to dig up cash or run into debt for medical and hospital costs? Have you heard radio speakers tell about a proposed new age in medical attention in which every man, woman and child is to have ready access to the very best doctors and hospitals only for the asking—and entirely free of cost? President Truman repeatedly has urged Congress to enact a federal medicine system which would guarantee you and your family and almost every other American except the very rich, "free" access to government medical facilities. Governor Warren of California, now candidate for the vice presidency on the Republican ticket, and many other public officials in or seeking office, advocate such a system. Many bills have been introduced into Congress in recent years, notably the Wagner-Murray- Dingell bill, advocating "compulsory health insurance," or "socialized medicine," and we have the statement of the CIO, the CIO-Political Action Committee, the Henry Wallace Progressive Party and other "liberal" groups that such a bill will be pressed on the Congress year after year t i l l it is enacted into law. The backers of this movement are confident, as well they may be; for there seems to be a strong popular response to this proposal. If enacted into law, it will bring about sweeping changes in private medicine, in the organization and finances of the federal government, in the relation of the federal government to you and your immediate neighborhood, in the attitude of the people toward government-operated institutions. Therefore, it is of the greatest importance that we all probe to the bottom of the proposed "new age in medical treatment" and make up our minds as to whether or not we want it. What is the specific proposal? The measures urged on Congress vary slightly from year to year, but they all call for what is described as compulsory health insurance. The proposal is to deduct so much from the wage earner's paycheck each week or month and require employers and self-employed persons to pay so much, the proceeds to go to the Social Security Administration, which in turn would hire physicians, dentists and nurses and would gradually take over hospital facilities and employ perhaps 100,000 to 200,000 welfare workers and health specialists to visit homes from time to time for various purposes. A typical bill would require that four percent be deducted from each paycheck for medical insurance. A Los Angeles plumber earns from $100 to $125 a week. If his wife works, earning say $50 a week, their total income averaging say $150 a week "take home," the medical law would cost them $6 a week, or $312 a year more than the government already deducts. ...