Robert Friedman - Hows Your Heath? The Fight for A NATIONAL Health Program

H OWS YOUR HEALTH ?

The Fight for a National Health Program

By Robert Friedman

Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,

Where wealth accumulates and men decay.

-Oliver Goldsmith

Preface

This pamphlet was originally published by New Century Publishers, who operated under the old Communist Party USA, in 1947. As such it reflects the historical conditions and attitudes of the era. The Party of Communists USA (PCUSA) restored this piece because, unfortunately, it is as relevant today as it was when it was written. The people of America still suffer and unacceptable for-profit healthcare system. This is such an important issue that it has been one of the more important catalysts of the revitalization of the Communist movement in the late 2010s. With America being the only developed nation (the richest one, at that) that doesnt have some sort of state provided healthcare, we must continue to advocate for the nationalized healthcare that all Socialist countries enjoy as a matter of course.

I. I S AMERICA HEALTHY ?

Americans are a sports-conscious, exercise-conscious, in short, a health-conscious people. We buy vitamin pills and sun lamps. We fish; we s wi m; we bowl. By the millions, we crowd baseball stadia in the summer, football fields in the fall. We do morning exercises at the radios behest and make every movie about Dr. Kildare a box-office success.

But all these signs of intense preoccupation with health do not indicate that America is aglow with vitality and physical well-being. Rather, they may properly be taken as symbols of a desperate search for health in which millions are engaged.

For, all pollyana propaganda to the contrary, Americans are not a healthy people, as a mountainous array and statistics demonstrate. Perhaps the most shocking example of national ill-health came with the governments disclosure that 30 percent of all American males who registered for the draft in World War II were rejected as unfit for military service.

In the richest country of the world, seven million of the youth and young manhood who should have been its finest physical specimens were instead shown to victims of a host of mental and physical defects.

That news, coming as it did while America was still fighting for survival against the fascist Axis, was subject matter for much aimless head-shaking and wondering of the what are we coming to? variety on the part of the press.

But the core of the problem was not tackled. The reasons why such an alarmingly large number of American boys are physically unfit were not given. The explanation for the failure of our society to prevent or to cure this grave condition was left unsaid. It is part of the purpose of this pamphlet to supply those missing facts.

The draft rejection figures would have come as no surprise to most Americans had they been made aware of other equally shocking demonstrations of the appalling state of health in the nation. In 1935, the U S Public Health Service made a National Health Survey, the most thorough study of its kind, to date. It showed that every day in the year, ,000,000 of our population suffer enforced idleness because of illness or injury. The financial cost of those lost days, in terms of lost wages, medical bills and deaths which might have been avoided, has been estimated as $ 10 billion each year. The cost in human misery, of course, is not as easily computed.

The National Health Survey found, too, that 23,000,000 Americans suffer some chronic disease or physical impairment, t hat 2,500,000 are invalided daily with serious chronic ailments such as tuberculosis, rheumatism, diabetes, asthma, cancer, heart disease and nervous disorders; while another

1,500,000 are burdened each day of the year with influenza, pneumonia and other respiratory diseases.

It is not easy to translate such statistics as these into a ready comprehension of the health crisis America is in. But the heart and mind of America should be quick to shame and anger at the fact that much of the incalculable toll of human misery could be avoidedthat helpless children are no less the victims of our national ill health than are their elders and that the neglect of our human resources r esults not only in many wasted lives but countless needless deaths.

In the richest country of the worldyes, America45,000 children die yearly before they reach the age of 14. Millions are blighted by illnesses which are preventable. 1,000,000 American youth have congenital syphilis. 9,000,000 suffer from mental and emotional disturbances. 10,000,000 have eye

defects, and 20,000,000 have poor teeth. Too many mothers die in childbirth. Too many young men and women die of tuberculosis and cancer. They could be saved.

Americas health crisis is not new, or sudden. If, in 1945, the government recorded a per cent rejection of draft registrants, that could scarcely be considered substantial progress from the year 1919 when, after another World War, United States Surgeon General Rupert Blue announced ...in the recent draft over 34 per cent of all registrants were rejected by examining boards on account of physical defects and diseases. In large measure these defects and diseases could have been prevented had proper attention been given to them, especially in childhood. Twenty-six years after, the same admissions are being made. In a message to the Congress, President Harry S. Truman, on November 19, 1945, declared: Millions of our citizens do not have a full measure of opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health. Millions do not have protection or security against the economic effects of sickness. But the pious Truman phrases weren't backed by d eeds.

What we need is hastehaste to make full use of all the tremendous new advances and discoveries which have been made by men of science; haste to make full use of the wealth and resources of America for the health of all the people.

I I . HEATH WANTED

The sun-tanned newspaper publishers whose inky grief was so vociferous and the congressmen who thundered their alarm to the nation at the report of the terrible state of American draftees health, could, if they were honest in their concern, make a real contribution to the well-being of the people. Simply, they could work for the passage of a bill introduced into Congress to advance precisely that purpose. Instead, the Wagner-Murray-Dingell Bill (National Health Act) languishes in congressional pigeon holes.

The measure is not a cure-all for the basic and underlying causes of Americas health crisis. Nevertheless, it would advance the United States toward the goal of elimination of every preventable days sickness and every preventable

death.

What is the National Health Act, S1606, HR4730? (These numbers may be changed when the bill is entered in the new th Congress.) S1606 incorporates f our basic aspects of the national health

program recommended to the Congress for adoption by President Truman in his message of November 1 th , 1945. They are, in the order proposed:

1. Federal grants to the states on an increased scale so that state and local health programs may function more efficiently.

2. Federal aid to states for maternal and child care, with s tate plans required to meet standards specified by the US Childrens Bureau.

3. Federal grants to the states to provide medical care to all needy persons. Present limitations are liberalized, and all persons declared needy by state agencies are to be provided with medical care.

4. Prepaid personal health service benefits, or in other words, a compulsory health insurance program. This, the key provision of the National Health Act, would guarantee to all Americans covered by the measure, doctors and dental care when required, plus hospital care up to a maximum of

days per year.

Almost every conceivable type of medical service, whether from a general practitioner or sp e cialist; whether preventive, diagnostic or curative; and whether furnished at the home,