WELFARE GOALS FOR AMERICA
Neuberger, Richard L.
Welfare Goals for America By RICHARD L. NEUBERGER WHAT ARE the American people thinking about? This is a question as broad as all the oceans of earth, and it could evoke innumerable answers. Yet...
...When I speak of "free and democratic nations," I refer specifically to Canada, Australia, Great Britain, New Zealand, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Italy, West Germany, and one or two others...
...The system has carefully-defined limits...
...It is not the appendix operation or the hernia surgery which bankrupts a family...
...All human beings like to feel some pride...
...The state frequently exercises reversionary rights over a citizen's home or cottage or farm...
...That program was the GI Bill of Rights, and at its heart were the basic schooling benefits—one month in college for each month in uniform...
...The obvious answer to this question demonstrates why so many problems involved in age, youth, and health can be met only by governmental action...
...Such people may denounce this as a "subsidy" for children...
...Can't we spend eight per cent as much on the health and welfare of our children as on armaments for ourselves and our allies...
...We are the only country in the world of any degree of development who have not developed devices such as the supplying of family allowances to help large families . . ." Family allowances in the United States, if geared to the same schedule of payments as in Canada, would cost about $3,500,000,000 a year...
...If the husband and wife could retire simultaneously, it is obvious that their security would be greater...
...I find that one labels governmental grants of which he approves a "service," and those which he disapproves a "subsidy...
...Yet, I could not help considering it relatively when, during the same week recently, the Senate passed both the $35,000,000,000 military-supply bill and the $4,270,000,000 Mutual Security bill for foreign aid...
...It is for all citizens but there are no cash benefits...
...Only a small minority believes these problems can be effectively handled outside the realm of governmental action...
...The citizen loses all sense of belonging somewhere...
...Could you buy your own cancer research for 30 cents, the price of a peanut butter sandwich at a drugstore...
...Indeed, much of my own thinking in this field is conditioned by my military service in the Canadian sub-Arctic, during the constructon of the Alcan Highway through the Yukon, at a time when family allowances first were under discussion...
...Should we even seriously believe those self-styled captains of industry, who warn they will become fed up and discouraged with us if we go in strongly for social-welfare legislation...
...Nor do they desire any assistance in the field of health which would jeopardize the delicate personal relationship between patient and doctor...
...This is particularly true during an era when the manufacturers of armaments and munitions are reaping the biggest financial reward in history...
...By "social-welfare legislation" I mean such measures as family allowances, health insurance, maternity benefits, disability benefits, and universal ol<J-age assistance and pensions...
...But in spite of these feelings of caution, the people of the United States are not afraid of their government...
...Such restrictions probably can be rationalized in a program of public assistance...
...Two—What will happen to me if I get sick...
...a propose the abolition of social security...
...There they are—age, youth, and health—the issues dominating my correspondence with my constituents and with citizens who live beyond my constituency...
...They were reluctant at first, then acquiescent, finally enthusiastic...
...All restraints on such profits have been removed, although our military budget is nearly as great now as at the zenith of the Korean War...
...and these are the ailments which break not only a family's heart but also its pocketbook...
...Michigan already has established the principle of family allowances in its unemployment-compensation program, by paying a higher set of rates to the idle wage-earner with dependents than to the single man out of a job...
...The last vestige of pride and self-respect is frequently squeezed out of our elderly recipients of old-age assistance...
...They want no federal assistance which would fasten on political fetters...
...It ought to be continued, of course, and improved whenever possible...
...But a person without private insurance receives benefits equal only to approximately one-fourth of his medical bill, on a specified fee schedule...
...Three—What can we do to make children healthier, happier, and better educated...
...Such features are important...
...Why make this person wait until he is 65...
...The American people are proud and independent...
...This merging of the leading features of the Australian and New Zealand health programs is worth at least serious study...
...A Congressional Committee on Low Income Receivers has reported that 5,000,000 American families received net incomes of under $1,000 each in 1954...
...This was a long stride toward family allowances, and the Wolverine state still endures beside its vast fresh-water lake...
...If the patient desires a private room, the ward fee may be applied to this rental...
...Ultimately it will come—just as surely as other reforms have arrived...
...Two social security checks often are essential to comfort in old age...
...But our country's most priceless resource unquestionably is the next generation of Americans, our children...
...I am not necessarily opposed to these subsidies...
...While it was in effect, the GI Bill of Rights made possible the education of 180,000 doctors and registered nurses, 36,000 clergymen, 83,000 policemen and firemen, 711,000 skilled mechanics, 450,000 civil engineers, and 113,000 physical and research scientists...
...8 There is not space here for lengthy arguments for family allowances...
...The recipient must plead poverty and destitution...
...Old Age Social security represents one of the greatest single advances in the history of our government...
...But it can provide some measure of security against the social and economic burdens which sit on the shoulders of so many of us...
...The record shows that, whereas Sweden and New Zealand have just about every possible social-welfare program, the United States has not yet enacted at least three out of the seven—family allowances, health and maternity benefits...
...Nelson H. Cruikshank, director of the department of social security of the AFL-CIO, has declared: "Persons who say that the government cannot administer a disability program apparently shut their eyes to the fact that it is administering a number of such programs...
...In addition, I would encourage an extensive program of federal aid to our schools, thus perpetuating the progressive spirit of the old Northwest Ordinance of 1789, which set aside public lands for the support of a common school system...
...Have not these same tycoons invested $9,000,000,000 in Canada, a country with universal old-age pensions and family allowances...
...Thus, there is a real inducement to participate in private plans...
...Children and other relatives are forced to participate in the financial care of their parents, even if estrangement has taken place over the years...
...Disability benefits may be classified as an old-age feature, because people obviously are more subject to disabling occurrences in their later years...
...That is why I believe a social-welfare program for Americans is the wisest platform any political party in the United States could propose, not only in 1956 but for all the years to come...
...The programs are family allowances, some form of health insurance, maternity benefits, old-age assistance or pensions, disability payments when men and women are incapacitated for work, survivors' benefits for next of kin, and unemployment insurance...
...I also favor reviving the educational benefits of the GI Bill of Rights, not only as a merited measure of social justice for our present crop of service men and women, but also to help America keep pace with the Soviet Union in the training of skilled and educated citizens...
...This is a substantial sum...
...The eligibility age for women might wisely be lowered to 60...
...Yet the Eisenhower Administration blandly ended this beneficial program January 31, 1955, even while issuing strong statements that Americans should stay in school longer...
...In their monumental study, Economic Needs of Older People, John J. Corson and John W. McConnell have pointed out that in many key industrial areas, "maximum hiring age for nearly 60 per cent of clerical jobs (for women) was 35 years or less, and for about 55 per cent of the factory jobs (for women), 40 years or less...
...Regardless of the nomenclature, there must be provision for the conscientious worker who no longer can hold down a job, through scant fault of his own...
...When my wife and I went north in peacetime to write about Canadian events, we saw the people of that free and prosperous country gradually taking to the innovation...
...Cruikshank then detailed such government systems as the various veterans' programs for men wounded or afflicted in war, the railroad retirement system, and all the disability benefits available to certain classes of federal employees...
...Youth I have written at length about family allowances...
...Yet the government has allowed to lapse the one program which tried to equalize sacrifice between those who stayed at home and made weapons, and those who manned the weapons on the battlefield and in training camp...
...The government matches the assistance made available through the individual's private health insurance, with the benefits in no case exceeding the total amount of the medical bill...
...Nearly every other free and democratic nation has more social-welfare legislation than has the United States...
...Can we afford to ignore the experience of other lands simply by smugly claiming we are superior in wealth and material goods...
...The means test, now in use, can be rigorous and ruthless...
...It cannot end many of our personal problems and conflicts...
...Health Under its present Conservative Party government, Australia operates a voluntary system for increasing private-insurance benefits, which has proved immensely popular...
...This is approximately 30 cents per person...
...They are programs for old people, young people, middle-aged people...
...I have outlined sketchily a series of programs...
...And why not...
...Over the "Northern Messenger" radio program, beamed toward the barrens from Edmonton, we heard the bitter debate...
...In fact, a Gallup Poll has shown that at least 90 per cent of the adults of Canada believe the program is "a good thing...
...Healthy persons never insist that the old lady who collapses on the sidewalk be billed for the wages of the patrolman who gave her first aid and then drove her home...
...7 Children aged 13 to 16...
...I am convinced that the political party which meets these issues with a positive and realistic program will gain and hold the support of the American people...
...None of these benefits is provided unless the individual files a claim...
...Our experience with social security has made this emphatically clear...
...This is a substantial difference, with the smaller incomes necessarily having to pay for far more pablum, diapers, obstetrical services, and cod-liver oil—if possible...
...Furthermore, these policies can be undertaken without imperiling the nation financially or threatening our precious personal freedom...
...Americans are humane people who face bravely toward the future...
...The 1950 income data from the Census Bureau discloses that the median income of American families with one child was $4,109, whereas that of families with six or more children was $3,045...
...In the realm of hospitalization, the Australian scheme is adapted to cases of long, lingering illnesses...
...Some of my physician friends fear such a law cannot be fairly operated...
...But they are not ennobling in a country as rich as ours...
...But what about workmen's compensation and industrial accident benefits in the states...
...It may take many years to bring about an old-age pension which is a matter of right, instead of need...
...This might require a one-half per cent increase in the social security payroll tax, on both employer and employee...
...Any comprehensive program of social welfare for the youth of America which did not include resuscitation of the GI Bill of Rights would be hollow and pallid...
...The amount has now been doubled to $48,432,000 for the National Cancer Institute, through the enlightened efforts of Senators like Lister Hill, Margaret Chase Smith, and Warren Magnuson...
...It might blend better with the American character than any other program in this sector...
...When he was governor of California, Earl Warren said that people were California's greatest resource, even exceeding the perennial sunshine and the oil in the ground...
...Yet if the mail of one U.S...
...An increasing number of children are members of larger families...
...Still, it must be careful and cautious governmental action...
...Americans aren't selfish that way...
...Eveline Burns of the School of Social Work at Columbia University, spoken last year to the Joint Conference on Children and Youth: "Even if families have a high average income, our children do not necessarily live in average families...
...Undoubtedly my proposals will bump headlong into the Hoover Commission argument that "those who receive governmental services, should pay for them...
...The average husband is older than his wife...
...It is financed by a specially earmarked small segment of the income tax...
...Americans, fortunately, always have rejected such crass appeals...
...I hope some day we can lighten our burdens of armaments sufficiently so that a universal old-age pension—a pension which is a matter of right—becomes the prerogative of every American...
...A good many of these policies have been tried in other free nations, where they have been universally popular and successful...
...I believe there are feasible policies in the domain of government which can make old age more secure, all of life more healthy, and youth more vital and rewarding...
...It is possible for humane and enlightened government to help make life better...
...In the 1936 Presidential campaign, the Republican Party issued strident warnings that social security meant a "dogtag" around the neck of every working man and the end of American freedom and individuality...
...After an individual has had 21 days of hospitalization, the government pays for a ward bed and nursing care...
...The Australian program provides for 84 days of hospitalization annually...
...It pays for medical care, surgical services, medicines, laboratory fees, X-rays, and similar attention...
...People without children pay school taxes, and willingly...
...Once a patient participates, he should be at liberty to select any doctor, dentist, or surgeon of his own choosing...
...It is the interminable and agonizing confinements for malignancies, kidney disease, and circulatory trouble that the average wage-earner cannot afford...
...There should be no intervention of the government between doctor and patient, which is one of the most intimate of all human relationships...
...To begin with, it encourages private plans like our Blue Cross...
...Each claim is processed carefully...
...It was claimed that family allowances meant the death of Canada's traditional liberties, the humiliation of assigning a serial number to each Canadian infant...
...Shall we subsidize boats and acres of peanuts, but not children...
...It can humiliate an elderly person, and often does...
...Are such programs necessary in a country of vast wealth like the United States...
...Few would return to the era when the man or woman too old to work could count only upon private charity for food, medicines, and shelter...
...This situation also* dictates a female social security eligibility age at 60, instead of at 65 or even at 62...
...It cannot ease all of life's aches and ills...
...I would begin family allowances with the same schedule of payments now operating in Canada: Per month Children under 6 ..............$ 5 Children aged 6 to 10...
...Families whose houses never are ablaze still consider it right to help finance the fire department for those unfortunate enough to have an occasional fire...
...Senator provides a yardstick, I think I can safely say the people are interested in three general questions: One—What will happen to me when I get old...
...It would not begin to pay for one intercontinental bombing plane, and yet it is all that we invested in the war against the most terrible disease ravaging mankind...
...I agree with Senator Paul H. Douglas of Illinois, who told the Senate June 20: "Self-respecting insurance is better than humiliating relief...
...Were not the same alarms expressed concerning these programs when they were new...
...The system also provides for dental care for children under 16...
...In some countries this is known as "incapacity for work...
...In most states today we have an old-age assistance program, but not a pension program...
...The American people so far, curiously enough, are not interested in this...
...If the pattern of Canada is followed, family allowances would be spent principally on such items as children's clothing, nutritious foods, care by pediatricians and dentists and registered nurses, summer camps, toys, and educational travel...
...He may become an object of charity and hopelessness in the meantime...
...6 Children aged 10 to 13...
...How familiar it all soundedl In 1945 family allowances became the law of the land in Canada...
...I feel confident that American workers are willing to pay their share of the extra cost...
...Our government has subsidized airlines, steamship operators, the builders of the transcontinental railroads, private utilities with accelerated tax write-offs, certain classes of agricultural crops, and prosperous newspapers and magazines with less-than-cost postal service...
...In recent years we have found scarcely any Canadians, regardless of political affiliation, hostile to family allowances...
...Australia's neighbor, New Zealand, has no limit on the duration of this benefit...
...What better way is there to invest money in a nation's future...
...Yet who in responsible authority today would RICHARD L. NEUBERGER, Democratic Senator from Orgeon, has written of social welfare problems for many American publications, including Harper's, The New Republic, The New Leader, The Reporter, and The Saturday Evenina Post...
...The monthly payments began for each mother with a child under the age of 16...
...I have made a study of the prevalence of seven major programs involving social welfare in a selected list of eleven nations, where the people are free to choose their representatives in government...
...Listen to these words from Dr...
...Many of them are essential to the continuing development of our country...
...For example, until the present fiscal year the government spent a mere $24,000,000 annually on cancer research—a pitifully small sum with which to try to solve the grim riddle of human cells running wild...
...Here are a few of the major programs which Americans might consider in the vital fields of age, youth, and health—particularly when our political parties translate campaign oratory into policies affecting our country and its future...
Vol. 20 • August 1956 • No. 8
