PAGE SIX
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN, LAWRENCE, KANSAS
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 1850
Thought For The Day —
"The public health is the foundation upon which rests the happiness of the people and the welfare of the nation. The care of the public health is the first duty of the statesman."-Disraeli.
Hippocrates, Jr. Speaks
Dear Editor:
In the Nov. 9 issue of the Daily Kansan there was an editorial boosting (?) Socialized Medicine.
It seems to us that the Editors of the Kansan are missing a good bet. Why should you waste such valuable space on the medical profession? Why not use it to your own advantage? The editorial should have read:
JOURNALISM STUDENTS
Why should you stand idly by and let the medics get all the gravity? For the first time in the history of journalism, we can make a living any place. Think of it! No longer will we have to worry about getting a job. Now, under this new plan, we will not have to migrate to the big, noisy bustling cities. Now with socialized journalism we can go to a sleepy little hamlet and live up to the great ethical standards of our profession. Now we can work on a little newspaper, bringing the gifts of enlightenment to the hinterland, without having to be a notary public or sell insurance to make a living.
Did you know that even in the state of Kansas there are many towns of 2,000 that have only one newspaperman? There are even some towns of 500 that do not even have a newspaper. Under socialized journalism we will now have the chance-painless too—to bring some real meaning to the word "equality." Now journalism students can go to work in their chosen profession immediately after graduation. No longer will our four years in college be wasted.
Of course, participation in the program would be entirely voluntary. A journalism graduate could enroll in the program or get a job digging ditches. Some people have objected that there would be too much control over the newspapers under this plan. This is not true! Experience in other countries does not bear this out. Why just look at Russia! Pravda can print anything they want to print. Under this new plan, we will not even have to charge for our newspapers; subscribers to the new plan can give their papers away.
Why should not a plan such as this be inevitable? There is need for it! Why is there need for it? Because it is an intelligent compromise between communism and our present uncouth system.
Incidentally, dear editor, if you think this letter, the arguments contained in it, or the idea pushed is silly; then you should read the editorial that appeared in your paper on the above date.
The Sophomore Medics
A Panacea For Dogmatism
Our first suggestion for the prolific letter writers is that it would benefit them immensely if they would take some time off and read a copy of the proposed National Health Insurance and Public Health Act (senate bill 1679; house of representatives bill 4312). This is the bill to which we refer when we speak of the health insurance proposals.
In addition to this administration proposal, there were also two other health insurance bills introduced in 1949. One was called Voluntary Health Insurance (senate bill 1456) and the other National Health bill (senate bill 1581). The latter was introduced by none other than the champion of free private enterprise. Sen. Robert A. Taft.
When one reads these proposals, one finds that no FREE services are mentioned. All the proposed services under all the health plans introduced are prepaid, in a manner quite similar to the present system of social security payments. Employee and employer contribute a small percentage of the employee's annual income. This goes into a special fund together with specified appropriations from Congress to meet the expenses of the national health program.
All the plans specify that the doctor is free to accept or refuse patients as he does now, and that the patient may pick his doctor as he does today.
There are also, in the proposals, provisions for setting up scholarship funds to help medical students through school and funds for establishing national research institutes for disease such as poliomyelitis, diabetes, rheumatism, arthritis, multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy, and epilepsy with 30 professional administrators in charge of them.
We could go on for another column, exposing the horrors of National Health Insurance, but then you wouldn't have anything left to write clever letters about. So we'll let you find out the rest of the terrifying tale in the Congressional Record. And if you don't know where to obtain a copy of the proposals, just write to your congressman and he'll be glad to send one, free. J.A.B.
J. A. B.
Editor's Note: The analogy between journalists and doctors, although amusing and with some worthwhile suggestion, is not a valid one.
The Public's Pulse
The Doctor Speaks
Dear Editor:
In the Nov. 9 edition of the University Daily Kansan there was an editorial by one Edward Chapin, wherein he presumes at the tender age of, I would judge, 12 years, to advise pre-medical students on what they may expect after having graduated in the School of Medicine. Probabilities are that the pre-medical students have more college credits and are possibly older in years than this boy that presumes to advise. Under separate cover I am mailing some tissue that he can wear in the seat of his pants which he probably needs at his tender age. I think it's disgusting that the editor of the University Daily Kansan would permit such an editorial to be printed unless it is meant as satire and if meant to be satire it is a very poor exhibition of such.
L. W. Cazier, M.D., K.U. 1920
Wamego, Kansas
Very Sincerely,
Editor's Note: We asked Mr. Chapin to list his qualifications for Dr. Cazier.
"I am 28 years old, and I have been around a little. During the five years I was in the army, I was in most of the states, Italy, Germany, and Russia as far as Kiev and Odessa. I spent six months in a prisoner-of-war camp in Germany and was treated by Polish, German, and American doctors in their respective hospitals.
"I did extensive research for the National Health Insurance editorial and am still at a loss to understand why doctors oppose it for any reason other than that they fear a loss of income."
Edward Chapin, Journalism senior
The Soph Medics
Editor's note: The letter, Hippocrates, Jr. Speaks, was signed by the following sophomore medics.
Edward M. Burrell
Helen Jones
Robert A. Jelinek
Louis M. Culp
Robert N. Hooper
Harold E. Dittemore
Dale G. Griswald
Henry H. Reed
Keith G. Battin
H. J. Menehan
W. O. Appellien
L. M. Rhodes
K. E. Hedrick
J. T. Grimes
D. E. Newton
F. K. Hartley
H. G. Bingham
JoAnn Myers
R. W. Hanna
Lawrence L. Kennedy
Jack D. Walker
Donald L. Cooper
David Rowlett
A. Dale Eshelman
W. J. Porter
Guy I. Akers
T. S. Westcott
G. Hawk
John Mansfield
H. Richard Draemel
G. M. Kiser
Marilyn Hutchison
D. E. Ray
James L. Ruble
Jack Perkins
Gilbert N. Casady
David Zacharias
Leo Cooper
W. Jack Stelnach
Kansans are prohibited by an old law from eating snakes on the Sabbath.
Encore
Dear Mr. Pre-Journalist:
Congratulations! By the time many of you graduate perhaps socialism will be an accepted institution in this country, and for the first time it will be possible for you to live up to the standards of your profession. National journalism control will make it possible for you to write what government lay officials want; that's what we've always needed in this country, an unrelenting voice of government where the enigmas of truth are relegated to make way for the dictates of the party in power.
You see, Mr. Pre-journalist, it's a situation somewhat analogous to the way the medical profession has allowed the health of the country to deteriorate. Journalists have stood on the ridiculous premise that freedom of the press was beneficial to the little guy-stupid individualists.
Doctors in practice and medical research men have always had the ludicrous impression that by their tremendous individual efforts and free interchange of ideas, advance could be made against disease and pain—idiots. Further, these imbeciles, who only go where the money is, allowed 400 people out of 150 million in the United States to die of typhoid in 1945, and in the same year 4,000 people contracted the disease.
Of course, in 1900 within a population of 76 million over 350,000 persons suffered typhoid and over 40,000 of them died. One could cite hundreds of such hopeless medical situations. Anyone can therefore see, what we need is some glorious panacea wherein advance can be made against disease.
Socialism will surely cure this medical ill. Mr. Pre-journalist, just as it will surely benefit your position. Of course socialism is a faulty nomenclature. Whether you live in this country under a socialistic government is purely voluntary (one could move to Russia).
Look at your present troubles! You have to report news as you see it: Nobody to tell you just what to say, you print or withhold as you see fit for the greatest good of the public and your integrity as moulders of public opinion (though some of your future contemporaries are prone to forget this responsibility).
With socialized journalism, however, your copy will be "piped"—straight from headquarters to the public with news papers as mere mechanical intermediaries. That's the life for a real journalist; no ideas to conjure, no policies to formulate and no opinions to ponder.
Those in the medical profession look to this day also: no night calls to make (we'll be in politics then, and besides night is no time to make quadruple copies of your application for treatment), no bills outstanding (we'll get a check at the end of the month), and sick children are only case 245729 (not polio, pertussis, rickets, or muscular dystrophy).
We, like you, shall be happy too since we will no longer be under tyrannical domination of the American Medical Association. Those fools are doing what community chest does. They're getting money together to fight for their patients right to be treated as individuals. Isn't that a horrible thing to do. And worse yet the money to fight for it coming from dopes who know nothing about the way to treat patients—from "medical monopolists" (only trained 10-15 years before being turned loose).
But the best thing about N.H.I. is that it won't cost the taxpayer a thing. All you have to do is set a limit on expenditures and all patients over the quota simply wait until the next fiscal period. If this plan doesn't work (no reason it shouldn't thought) then all we have to do is borrow 26 million from England. "Experience in other countries bears this out."
It is very true, Mr. Pre-journalist, that the great majority of your colleagues are naive enough to deny the benefits of socialism by any name, but a few smart guys can take care of them. Again foreign experience bears this out.
So why do those in medical circles believe that crackpot journalists will by mutation grow a second head? "Because there is a need for it."
Gene Hawk Med Student.
At Tuesday night's "Crisis" lecture, Dr. John Ise said he suggested to several Italian students in Austria this summer that they could help their country's population problem by establishing birth-control centers in all the towns and cities of Italy. "But they thought I was joking," he said. Rodney Nipnap thinks it would have been more appropriate if he had said, "but they thought I was kidding."
During the question and answer period, a student retaliated to Dr. Ise's suggestion that the U.S. should build a huge air force to aid our diplomatic relations, by asking if he had ever heard of an armament race being followed by peace. The gentle doctor quickly replied, "Have you ever heard of a peace era being followed by peace?"
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