WHAT PRICE GI BABIES?

...Why do they feel it necessary to heckle and obstruct a program which is immensely popular, which by general admission has been honestly and ably administered, and which, to put the matter in terms that any politician should understand, has the American flag wrapped around it and the bands playing for it both on week days and on Sundays in every American city and town ? Things, as W. S. Gilbert remarked, are seldom what they seem, and our medical politicians aren't really worried about this sacred doctor-patient relationship...

...That is proved by the fact that whereas for the fiscal year of 1944 it gave EMIC only $29,700,000, parcelled out in three separate grants, for the fiscal year of 1945 it has appropriated a lump sum of $42,800,000...

...That girl in the street car, so close to her time you tried hard not to look at her—she's heard of EMIC...

...Certainly they represent one of the most important undepreciated assets with which we will enter the postwar world...

...Just to make sure that no such unfortunate misapprehensions develop, in the armed forces or in the civilian population, it might be well to explain, as fairly as one can, why our medical politicians continue to stick their necks out as much as they do by raising hell with EMIC...

...They might insist on putting a new, broad floor under the distribution of medical care in this country, not just for mothers and babies, but for everybody: the sort of thing envisaged in the Wagner-Murray-Dingell Bill, which organized medicine and its drug and advertising allies insist on calling "socialized medicine" although God knows it's not that...

...more in difficult cases—directly to the mother...

...Just as the Canadian buyers of grade-labeled canned goods have plenty of choice, between brands as well as between government grades, so the prospective GI mother can take her pick of all the physicians in town whom the Children's Bureau or the state health agency administering the program, has recognized as meeting its standards of competency...

...their officers are equally strong for the program, although it is only the wives and children of enlisted men, of the four lowest pay grades, and aviation cadets who are entitled to receive the free medical, nursing, and hospital care, administered through the state health agencies, that EMIC provides...

...Now there is nothing to stop her from choosing a reputable physician and a hospital, which is precisely what she does, with EMIC's help and guidance in the matter, of standards...

...GI's Might Get Mad For that reason, if you're writing to a young relative or friend in the service, it might be well not to mention the sniping and sabotage which EMIC has had to endure from the organized medical profession...

...EMIC believes in democracy...

...Also, they may not like the idea of having a doctor, no matter how ethical, poke his nose into how much his wife does or does not earn outside her allowance, sit as judge and jury in the determination of the fee, and possibly put the family down in his books as a "part pay" or "charity" case...

...EMIC believes that, like it says in the high school civics books, these GI babies all have a right to life, lib— what's that...

...Not only are the GI's strong for EMIC...

...Like all babies, these GI infants are uniquely precious and beautiful in the eyes of their young parents, and as a matter of fact, the draft requirements being what they are, and the soldiers' girls being the pick of the lot, they are probably a cut above the biological average...

...He might think that the medical societies, which have been passing resolutions denouncing EMIC for interfering with his wife's freedom to say what physician she likes to have, were more interested in chiseling an extra something out of the Government allowance check than in giving the wife and kid a decent break...

...Possibly they have learned pride, as well as realism, in the course of their service to their country...

...As for organized medicine, it appears to have learned nothing...

...Well, it's about time...

...The latter would then choose a doctor and bargain for his services...

...The GI might not understand...

...These officers, including the Supreme General of the Army and Navy, have observed that the married 61 often worries more about what is happening to his wife and kid back in Bottsville than he does about what may happen to him while he's doing his stoic best in the line of duty...

...God also knows, presumably, that a floor under nutrition and genuine preventive medicine would be far more important and valuable than the Government-aided rationalization of the dubious machinery of medical therapy for which this bill provides, in its present highly imperfect form...

...Again, better not bother servicemen with all this...

...Formerly, in many cases, she was obliged to "choose" an unsanitary and incompetent midwife because that was all the family could afford...

...Wide Support For EMIC EMIC, otherwise known as the Emergency Maternal and Infant Care Program of the Children's Bureau, is one wartime institutional creation about which Congress is unqualifiedly proud and satisfied...

...But they have always seen that "sliding scale" in operation by hands less than faithful to the ethical obligation it entails...

...If from this you gather that the folks back home are strong for EMIC, you will be correct...

...Thus far our medical politicians have not suggested that the fee should ever be less than EMIC's minimum...

...There is the catch, from the point of view of our medical politicians...

...It treats these GI babies all alike, insisting merely that they and their mothers get off to a decent start, with no favors asked, but also with no sourpuss sitting in the box office counting pennies at the gate of life...

...In fact the only people who are stronger for EMIC than the folks back home are the folks in the Solomons, the Aleutians, Europe, the Mediterranean, and other theaters where our GI's are beginning to hope that the end of their job is in sight...

...They might start writing letters to their folks, or perhaps to their Congressman...

...And this time, if it sticks its neck out too far, organized medicine is likely to get slapped down hard by an outraged press and public...

...They have known doctors of faultless integrity and devotion...

...What organized medicine wants is that the GI wife be permitted to offer, and the physician to accept, a "gift" or additional payment over and above the amount allowed by the Children's Bureau...

...You haven't heard about EMIC...

...And when and if they get home they might even start doing things in that crude, brusque, extraverted way of theirs that has proved so remarkably effective in winning the war...

...What gripes them is the same thing that upsets the canners who have fought the OPA on the grade labeling issue...

...Profession Learns Nothing EMIC not only pays the bill but specifies its amount and the services it covers...

...If the GI's should get this idea—not understanding that it's the principle of the thing, not the money, that the organized med: il profession is concerned about, then these confuseu and embittered young men might get very sore...

...They might not understand, and many of them have highly developed and sensitive ideas about human dignity and decency...

...Which is one reason perhaps, why she seemed bo confident and unworried, as well as so movingly lovely in her young fruitfulness...

...Too many of those "operational fatigue" cases trace back to the unfair jolts GI's sometimes get out of the mail...

...EMIC, at least, is of that opinion...

...What they would like is that EMIC pay its going rate—around $50 per baby...

...In fact, since EMIC pays the bill, the average working class mother has genuine freedom of medical choice for the first time...