Medical Fight Goes On

...We Side With Leopold LEOPOLD STOKOWSKFS proposal that army bands be sent into battle in tanks and armored cars to whip up-the martial spirit of troops, was laughed to scorn this week at the American Bandmasters Association meeting...

...The bandmasters inferred the famous conductor would be better off if he went back to his Bach and left band music alone...

...But the Medical Society sees in that tacit approval of group health—and, boy, that'a blood on the moon in this state and yours...

...If the Society's plan gets Legislative authorization, it may be forced to establish a capital reserve of $200,000-$300,000 by the Commissioner of Insurance...

...There are 64 million policyholders, and 124 million policies on 111 billions of insurance...

...Out Of The Long Confusion LIGHT is beginning to dawn out of the long confusion...

...HTHE WHITE CROSS STAFF includes some of Boston's crackerjack surgeons...

...An impressive array of progressive leaders and organizations have put their shoulder to the group health wheel...

...That course may appeal to the timid or the weary...

...And the poor record of plans that let in "any licensed physician" is apt to make the Commissioner increasingly insistent upon a high amount...

...They've testified for the Medical Society Plan, have remained publicly silent on the White Cross...

...Its plan would let in any licensed physician...

...In cases cited by the SEC report, bankers secured places on insurance company boards and then obtained huge deposits for their banks, sometimes with disastrous results...

...Our boys lower their instruments, badly demoralized...

...State regulation is too weak to cope with the big fellows whose offenses against policyholders and the public are disclosed in an exhaustive report just released by the Securities and Exchange Commission...

...Victory by the Yanks came when they shattered enemy morale through use of a new secret weapon...

...He sees nothing particularly wrong about that—and wants the group health plans to provide the "information and experience" necessary for a workable government program...

...The White Cross requires affiliated doctors to be graduates of Grade A medical schools and members of the staffs of approved hospitals...

...Without policyholders' consent or knowledge, the Association of Life Insurance Presidents through a "clandestine" legislative lobby spent more than $500,000 of policyholders' premium funds to defeat state legislation for low-cost mutual savings bank life insurance...

...Republican Henry Parkman was defeated in the recent Senatorial contest by Senator Walsh but now speaks sincerely and effectively for group health, thinks "because of the need government is going to get into medicine sooner or later...

...Willkie finally came right out and told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that his peace talk during the last campaign was just "a bit of campaign oratory...

...Channing Frothingham answers: "Patients want free choice of a properly-qitalified physician...

...T IKE ITS COMPANION in reaction, the Power Trust, the American Medical Association appears convinced at last that it is losing the national battle for the status quo...

...Also into this rather historic legislative battle now comes the Blue Cross, our local hospitalization service plan with some quarter-million members in the state...

...Stokowski rallies them, raps his baton twice sharply...

...The high whistling scream of fifes descending upon a new arrangement of "Yankee Doodle...

...Blunt Mr...

...Willkie were frank with the American people, are we supposed to sit down, now that election is over, and call it a day...

...The SEC estimates that by 1950, at the present rate of growth, 26 of the largest companies will hold assets valued at 40 billions...

...Then the enemy's tubas opening up on our boys, sending over a heavy barrage of their national anthem...

...By means of interlocking directorates of insurance companies, together with scrambling of directors of insurance companies, banks and industries, favoritism has been shown in the depositing of insurance funds, contrary to sound business policy...

...The White Cross insists that this makes the Insurance Department unnecessary...

...Overlooking the fact that we had no real alternative to the Roosevelt-Willkie point of view on international affairs, and that neither the President or Mr...

...Similar West Coast plans face financial disaster because a few unscrupulous doctors have piled up credits by unnecessary house calls...

...This time we'll string along with Leopold for reasons of our own...

...Suddenly, the rat-tat-tat of drugs spitting across the wastes of No Band's Land...

...Our ideal battle would be one with great bursts of military music and practically no bursts of gunfire...

...And of course, the communique of victory: Washington, D. C.—The war department announced an important battle won today by an American musical corps...

...SEC Commissioner Sumnex T. Pike has proposed limited federal supervision for insurance firms, warning some action must be taken before "public clamor forces all-inclusive federal regulation...

...The Committee on Public Health that has heard the White Cross bill and the Committee on Insurance that has heard the Society's bill are expected to report each favorably to the Committee on Ways and Means...

...So aided and abetted by equally reactionary state Medical Societies, organized medicine is reforming its lines for a new defense behind the more easily brow-beaten state Legislatures...

...We can see it now, the mechanized bands crawling cautiously toward each other in tanks and trucks, feeling out the foe with a few strains of "Dixie...

...The Society overlooks the arguments in favor of Public Health supervision, and insists plans go under Insurance...

...A successful group plan must keep out the medical racketeers...

...If the President chooses to flout this deep-going desire for peace, that is his responsibility...

...Famed Dr...

...The Yanks rush to the attack, aided by a "secret new weapon...

...Medical Fight Goes On By HAROLD PUTNAM Boston, Mass...

...Our little brawl in Massachusetts between the progressive doctors of the group health movement and the Fishbeins of the Medical Society is important because it's a brew of the same recipe that's simmering in the cauldron of medical politics throughout the nation...

...But there are already curious indications that this squeeze-play against group health may boomerang...

...This would force accumulation of a large capital reserve—a tough limitation on the service of the small group health plan, not so tough for the wealthy Medical Society...

...Insurance Companies Get A Jolt FEDERAL REGULATION, which has had some success in breaking other giants of American economics and finance of their bad habits, may be needed to curb another wayward Colossus, the huge life insurance industry...

...They are far from "perfect" when they hold up premium rates by monopolistic agreements, spend policyholders' money for lobbying, deposit funds in their own directors' banks without regard to safety, pay insurance executives excessive salaries, and block the flow of capital into productive enterprise...

...Since there is in our country tremendous opposition to the President's proposed foreign policy, it is our duty to register this opposition...

...The Progressive gives thanks for the opportunity to fight shoulder to shoulder with the countless men and women who not only believe but ACT UPON THEIR BELIEF that democracy means more than going to the polls»every four years...

...Joseph C. O'Mahoney, Wyoming Democrat and TNEC chairman, who reportedly had the 446-page report twice rewritten to tone down its criticism of life insurance practices, blandly insists federal regulation is not needed at this time...

...It is none the less our job as American citizens to make our position felt...

...The corps routed a large enemy force, captured three brass sections, scores of tubas and tons of sheet music...

...Both plans are "service" plans, collecting regular fees from subscribers and paying doctors on a unit-of-service basis...

...In quiet tones they told the Committee on Public Health recently the case history of lives they were able to save because the patient came for treatment quickly—did not wait until the last moment for fear of a medical bill...

...Parkman, Cabot, Frothingham and Russell are Boston Brahmin names from away back—but they're in the front line trenches of this medical revolution...

...The 365 legal reserve life insurance companies own more than 28 billions in assets now...

...The White Cross favors a combined bill, containing the best features of each—one that would permit each plan to go its own way...

...But Sen...

...HPHE WHITE CROSS, in a bill given a public hearing a few days ago, asks that any group of responsible physicians have the right to set up a group program in any community in the state and that the plans be supervised by the Department of Public Health...

...Any flaws in that vast structure are a major threat to our entire economy...

...That's what the White Cross gives them...

...The secret weapon is believed to be a lively Stravinsky arrangement of "Jeannie With The Light Brown Hair...

...A curious feature of the fight in this state is in the blue-blood quality of the progressives who are sticking by group health principles...

...But the Blue Cross still stonily turns down all requests for information on the White Cross and its operator refuses to transfer calls to executives, who, she insists, "know nothing about the White Cross...

...Their executive director assures me in dulcet tones that they have been "friendly toward the White Cross...

...VAST WEALTH has been concentrated in the hands* of the few men who operate the insurance companies, with the money going almost entirely into bonds and mortgages and other indebtedness, thereby being withdrawn from use as fresh capital badly needed for new business ventures...

...There comes the show-down...

...Roosevelt has been inoculating us more gradually, but even he has reached the stage of using his power for all-out aid to Britain, with no ifs, ands or buts...

...He declares that although the insurance companies "are not perfect" they have come through the investigation "in good shape...

...Instead of worrying about the 365 companies, let's worry about our 64 million policyholders and the nation...

...The Society's patented anti-group health smear is that this "socialized medicine" prevents "free choice of a physician...

...In filing a bill for the establishment of a budgeted medical plan of its own and in its back-handed attacks on the White Cross, a Greater Boston group health plan, the Massachusetts Medical Society has placed itself in the uncomfortable hot seat of arguing for lower medical standards and supervision by the State Department of Insurance...

...The highly astute Mr...

...Among many mutual companies records of operation show that the policyholder participation theory has broken down and that "almost invariably the management takes full control and perpetuates itself and often is exceedingly generous in salaries paid to the controlling executives...

...The press, with the blind enthusiasm of a recent convert, wonders how the Roosevelt foreign policy can be questioned by Progressives who supported the re-election of the President...

...In its study, made for the Temporary National Economic Committee, SEC investigators found companies engaging in such practices as these: Through secret intercompany agreements and "gentlemen's understandings" monopolistic conditions have been established, including uniform premium rates, commissions and underwriting practices...

...The Society objects to the higher medical standards, because a good proportion of its doctors couldn't meet them...

...Whether they ean keep it rolling through a reactionary Legislature remains to be seen...