INSURANCE AGAINST MISERY
Forand, Aime J.
For The Aged Insurance Against Misery by AIME J. FORAND T ODAY WE ARE witnessing the greatest change in population age groups in America's history. These changing groups have created and...
...The ris ing cost presents a lesser degree of dif ficulty to a working man or woman who is able to purchase insurance against most of these costs...
...What contacts does the medical profession have or who knows the Congressman's top secretariat on his Washington staff...
...9467, which died in corn Who is the Congressman's personal physician...
...The cost of a reasonable plan would be higher than the average aged person can afford...
...Had they spent as much energy in looking for a solution to the problem as they did to defeat my bill, I am quite sure they would have been of greater service to the people of America...
...For this particular group the socio-economic pendulum is swinging in both directions...
...They may require more elaborate types of care than younger persons and their recovery is likely to be slower...
...The most significant changes are occurring in the age group of 65 years and over...
...I have found that persons in this age group were actually postponing and even doing without medical care solely because they did not have the necessary funds to meet the costs...
...One such booklet is entitled "The Pill That Could Change America...
...In part, because of these new developments, older persons have greater need for hospital and other medical services than younger persons...
...Their incomes generally are considerably lower than those of the rest of the population, and in many cases are either fixed or declining in amount...
...In view of the antagonistic attitude of the A.M.A., I am happy to report that many individual doctors have written to me endorsing the principle of my bill and stating that although they belong to the A.M.A., the A.M.A...
...It is conceivable, however, that the use of social security to provide the mechanism to assist in the solution of problems of financing these needs may be necessary ultimately...
...It is true that many people today are able to buy better health insurance than at any previous time...
...There were fifteen such questions, attempting to achieve through pressure and intimidation what they had not been able to accomplish at the hearings—an attempt to do indirectly what they were not able to do directly...
...Private insurance hesitates to tackle the problem of insuring the aged today because it cannot be met economically...
...On the other hand, it must be borne in mind that these policies are limited and do not cover the expanded scope of the needs of the aged...
...These changing groups have created and will continue to create vast and complex social and economic problems...
...REPRESENTATIVE AIME FORAND, a Democratic Representative from Rhode Island, is leading the fight in the House for medical insurance for the nation's aged...
...Present figures indicate that people over 65 now number fifteen and one-third million and that this figure is rising at the rate of one million every three years...
...The problem of the health of the aged is one that should command the attention and consideration of all of us...
...The upswing is in the cost of medical and hospital services...
...This account has been written with no particular authoritative source...
...The cost of these policies, small as they may appear, are prohibitive to the vast majority of the aged who are living on social security pensions or other fixed income...
...headquarters with inaccurate cost figures and statistics...
...The most startling revelation is that more than 80 per cent of these people assumed responsibility themselves for all the medical costs they incurred...
...Limited protection leaves the problem virtually unsolved...
...until a better one is offered, I shall continue to press for its enactment...
...As a group they use about two and one-half times as much general hospital care as do average persons under the age of 65...
...was acting bona fide in its pressure, propaganda, and distortions...
...The possibility always exists that, when it is found financially unwise to issue this type of policy, the companies will decline to renew, in one sweeping motion, the whole series of this type of insurance...
...Department of Health, Education and Welfare said: "The success of modern medicine in preventing epidemics and in curing or controlling diseases once usually fatal has brought chronic illness, particularly the illness of old age, to the fore as a health problem...
...This 28-page booklet is supposedly a review of socialized medicine in the world today...
...In addressing this insurance industry, which supplies 90 per cent of the voluntary health insurance in the United States and Canada, I said, "I want the help of all who are interested in this great problem of ours...
...The entire insurance industry has been helpful in supplying the Committee with valuable information on the utilization of insurance by the aged and with candid opinion on how the problem can be better resolved...
...The basic difficulty private insurance companies face, in computing a hospital medical plan for the aged, is that this group is the high-risk, high-cost element...
...4700 provides that solution...
...Many who managed to save some money during their working years were literally wiped out by one illness...
...The rising cost of medical care over the past decade has been felt by persons of all ages, but older people have larger than average medical care needs...
...However, these policies are usually offered to that segment of the population under the age of 65 or even 60...
...The coverage offered under these policies is in the experimental stage, and the natural conservatism of the industry is holding the benefits down to a minimum...
...In a recent report the U.S...
...The argument is made that private insurance companies have made great strides in the voluntary health contracts...
...These companies are to be commended for their sincere attempt to meet the problem of the aged...
...This was distributed to every member of the American Medical Association...
...They also have greater need for long-term institutional care...
...In Washington...
...Medical and hospital care today is the costliest it has ever been...
...Surgical benefits were offered from a conservative schedule in the policy...
...In our form of government, opposition is encouraged to bring a problem into proper perspective and to eliminate any impassioned appeal beyond reason or practicability...
...This policy sold for $8.50 per person, per month...
...As a result of these soaring costs of medical care and because of the inability of the aged to meet these costs, I introduced, in August of 1957, a bill, H.R...
...Despite the pressure put on the American Hospital Association to change its prepared statement, Frank S. Groner, representing the A.H.A., told the Ways and Means Committee, "It is believed that every realistic effort should be made to meet the hospital needs of the retired aged promptly through mechanisms utilizing existing systems of voluntary prepayment...
...The aged, however, in many instances are un able to purchase this insurance be cause of their advanced age and lower income...
...One thousand persons a day are becoming 65 years old...
...Literature started pouring out of A.M.A...
...Perhaps $10 would have been sufficient for a hospital room in 1940, but since the war years hospital costs have risen 400 per cent...
...Some insurance firms are now selling health and accident plans designed for the aged...
...I want the help of everybody to find a solution and if the insurance companies can provide it, fine...
...A solution must be found...
...One of the more pressing problems confronting these people is in the field of hospital and medical care, where the basic question to be resolved is: how can medical needs be financed out of lower than average financial resources...
...If the Association, whose members hold the key to the health of our nation, refuses to look the problem in the eye, without cries of socialism and other diversionary tactics, then I contend that the federal government should step in and assist in providing for the general health and welfare...
...The social security vehicle is administratively set up and, in the normal course of bookkeeping procedure, can work well in this program...
...Because of the millions of persons now covered under the social security system, the federal government is in a better position to distribute the cost burden over a broader area and in a more equitable manner...
...Another company has offered a policy with essentially the same benefits at the cost of $6 per person, per month...
...the backstroke is the diminishing or static income of the retired...
...One such company advertised, for a limited time, its "Senior Security Policy/' This provided for the payment of $10 per day up to 60 days of confinement (not less than five days), $5 per day for 55 days of confinement in a convalescent or nursing home...
...does not represent their views or speak for them...
...For The Aged Insurance Against Misery by AIME J. FORAND T ODAY WE ARE witnessing the greatest change in population age groups in America's history...
...These pamphlets and booklets have appropriate titles suitable to their propaganda purposes...
...At home...
...What happens to those persons who are unable to meet even the insurance rates of the existing health policies is a source of immediate concern to us...
...The OASDI mechanism provides a ready and equitable method of spreading the cost of hospital care for the aged over the entire working population and at the same time providing them with more extensive and adequate protection than is available through private insurance...
...I believe that my bill H.R...
...I cannot sincerely say the A.MA...
Vol. 24 • February 1960 • No. 2
