Amerikai Magyar Szó, 1974. január-június (28. évfolyam, 1-26. szám)

1974-03-21 / 12. szám

Thursday, March, 21. 1974

■AMERIKAI MAGYAR SZONixon Health Bill: High Costs, Low Benefits

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WASHINGTON — Congress will be considering at least six different national health insurance programs, and five of them are designed to, or will in effect, prevent the passage of a meaningful measure that would give the people universal coverage and establish some badly-needed reform in our health care delivery system.

The greatest threat to an effective measure' is posed by the Nixon Administration’s bill, known as the Comprehensive Health Insurance Plan and sponsored by Rep. WUbur B. Mills (D.- Ark.), chairman of the powerful House Ways & Means Committee, and Reps. Herman T. Schneebel (R.-Pa.), the ranking Republican on the committee, and Robt. W. Packwood (R,-Ore).

TRICKY BILL

The Nixon tűi has been described by S writer forifte Boston Globe as “an ingeniously, «rafted bill.’’ And so it is. It nromJKar near-universal coverage and •ithout new taxes. Very appealing. But » %ylth all Nixon proposals, it’s very

> A close examination reveals that the benefits are minifnal, and the reason Why there will be no new taxes is that the insurance would be provided by private insurance companies. The President never forgets his buddies in big business.

The premiums would be split 75 to 25 between employers and workers and it is estimated, at present prices, they would cost the average family $600 a year. Of. course, under the pressure of

a national plan the cost would be bound to go up at a great rate. In any event, it would provide a profit bonanza for the country's 900 private insurance companies. There’s more than one Way to tax the people.

So the private Insurance companies would be taken care of, but how will the people, for whom the coverage is supposed to be designed, be taken care of?

HIDDEN TAXES

Not so well as advertised. In the first place there are no benefits until the patient has spent $150 out of pocket, and then the insurance covers only 75 percent of hospital and doctor bills. The Nixon plan, as do other Inadequate proposals, stresses “catastrophic” coverage. There would be full coverage only after the patient has spent $1,500 in a year. Dept, of Health Education and Welfare (HEW) officials have estimated that only two percent of the population would a<|!tually receive catastrophic benefits. Not exactly universal coverage.

The Administration lists an impressive set of out-of-hospital and preventive benefits, including mental health services, family planning, prenatal and maternity care, and well-child-care and eye, ear and dental care up to age 13.

To qualify for these services, however, any family that makes over $7,500 a year has to spend more than $150 for each child before the plan would pay a nickel. In effect, this renders coverage of preventive medicine meaningless for most: the child would have to get sick before he qualifies for “well-child-care.”

Sen. Edward Kennedy (D.-Mass.) has

declared that "their plan’s deductibles are so high that only one in four Americans a year will get any benefits.”

In addition to these shortcomings, the Nixon measure has no proposals to cure the many evils of the present health care delivery system, and would leave us with the present hodge-podge of government and private insurance plans. Health insurance would still be a drag at the bargaining table; not only would the worker be shelling out his or her 25 percent for insurance premiums, but the employer’s 75 percent would be paid by a sacrifice in wage increases. No new taxes ?

A BETTER IDEA

In contrast to the Nixon plan and the other four major proposals — some worse and some a little better, but tűi variations on the Administration theme — there is the Health Security Act, sponsored by Sen. Kennedy and Rep. Martha Griffiths (D.-Mich.).

The Kennedy-Griffiths measure has been endorsed by HE conventions, not as the perfect health insurance plan, but as the one that comes closest to the union’s objective of universal, free health coverage for all Americans regardless of their economic status. It is also supported by the rest of organized labor.

The Health Security Act would provide payment for all hospital and doctor bills and there ara provisions for payment of a great part of additional expenses. There are no deductibles or out- of-pocket “co-payments”. Since there are no deductibles and no top limits on the benefits payable, the measure provides

for the "catastrophic” insurance that the other bills make so much of; the patient doesn’t have to spend a cent to qualify.

The program would replace all private health Insurance plans and Medicare. Medicaid, however, would continue to operate. It would be administered by a new Federal agency, the Health Security Board. The program would be financed half from general tax revenues and half by a payroll tax similar to Social Security, it also provides incentives to reorganize the health delivery system and emphasizes preventive medicine.

It is the opinion of some political pundits that no health measure will be passed in 1974. Most everyone agrees, however, that the kind of program we will finally get will be shaped in the coming sessions of Congress, this year.

The Congress and the Administration cannot ignore the need for some sort of national health insurance program forever but they will, for the most part, try to get away with a minimum plan that preserves the private insurance companies' profits.

“CRISIS YEAR”

“Compromise” will be the key word for 1974 and that means a greatly weakened measure. Once such a program is enacted it will take longer to replace it with an effective bill than it took to get any kind of action at all.

So 1974 is a crisis year for the the people who want and need an effective universal health program. Labor must apply counter pressure on Congress, not only in support of the Health Security Act, but for improvements in that plan.

Find Plastics Workers Liver Cancer Victims

Alarmed by the discovery that a high percentage of workers in the plastics industry are victims of serious liver disorders and fatal liver cancer, the federal government has declared that an “occupational health emergency” exists.

Furthermore, there is some evidence that the same chemicals causing harm to the workers may be causing harm to consumers buying the plastic products.

VINYL CHLORIDE

The alarm was sounded by Dr. John j Creech, physician at the B.F. Goodrich chemical plant in Louisville, Ky. He discovered that 23 out of the 271 workers at the plant were suffering from cirrhosis of the liver,* that is, from mal- functionlngs of that organ. Five others had died from angiosarcoma, an always fatal cancer of the liver’s blood cells, [ and one other man was found to be presently dying from it. Similar numbers of afflicted workers were discovered at the Goodyear Tire and Rubber plant in Niagara Falls, N Y. and at a Union Carbide plant in South Charleston, West Virginia by scientists from New York City’s Mt. Sinai Hospital.

Dr. Creech warned that those presently with the less serious liver malfunc- tionings were likely to have the cancer later on in life. He also suspects that the number of those who have been af- ilicted since the Louisville plant opened 31 years ago is much greater than medical records show.

“Most doctors do not know about the i liver disease or the cancer,” he said, and “misdiagnose it and write down the cause of death as something else.”

All of the Louisville, Niagara Falls and South Charleston workers who have the ailment are directly involved in the production of polyvinyl chloride from vinyl chloride, which produces gases that enter the lungs of workers.

Vinyl chloride is the foundation for much of the modem plastics industry, and large numbers of its molecules are put together to form polyvinyl chloride, a white powdery chemical which looks like sugar.

Dr. Irving Sellkoff of Mt. Sinai Hospital warns that the liver diseases come about from prolonged exposure to the chemicals. ‘The plastic era is now about 35 years old,” he said. He predicted that this is long enough for the disease to show up, and that many more people who had worked with the chemicals over the years would soon be showing symptoms.

GOVERNMENT IGNORED

Tests done in Italy a few years ago show that animals exposed to vinyl chloride and polyvinyl chloride contracted both liver cancer and liver malfunctioning. In Europe, where 75 percent of the world’s supply of vinyl chloride is produced, signs of the diseases have been showing up in high percentages since the 1960s.

Some 6,500 workers in 51 American plants work directly with vinyl chloride and polyvinyl chloride. In addition, tens of thousands of American workers participate in the conversion of these raw materials into countless products, including paints, construction pipes, furniture, upholstery, draperies, wall coverings, floor tiles, table cloths, garden hoses, phonograph records, dentures, bottles, and drugs.

When Dr. Creech reported his findings to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, a federal agency set up by the job safety act, the Institute’s head, (Dr. Marcus Key, called the situation “a serious emergency to be immediately and fully investigated.”

The government, as well as private agencies, are now studying the disease to determine safety limits for the chemicals. The State of Kentucky has already drastically reduced the amounts allowed to float in factory air.

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But, at present, the federal government allows as much as 500 parts of Vinyl chloride per million parts of factory air, a level that readily causes liver damage in animals. Furthermore, studies show that workers can be exposed to

1,500 parts of the stuff per million parts of air during some steps in the manufacturing process.

The government knew about the adverse affects of vinyl chloride 13 years I ago, from a study done by the Dow j Chemical Co., but nobody did anything j about it.

DANGER TO PUBLIC?

Now, Dr. Creech and Dr. Selikoff say they are not only worried about the workers manufacturing plastics and plastic products, but about the people who buy them. Hundreds of millions of consumers in every industrialized country come into contact with these products.

Prof. Barry Commoner, in his book The Closing Circle points out that both the army and private scientists discovered that blood for blood transfusions kept in plastic containers harmed, and sometimes killed, those receiving the blood. Animals cells kept by scientists in plastic containers died.

The plastic got into the blood and animal cells through a process readily observable by anyone who has ever bought a new car with vinyl seat covers according to Commoner: “When you enter a plastic-upholstered car which has had its windows closed for a day or two, especially in summer heat, the steering wheel is slippery, and the inner window surfaces are sometimes coated with a slippery transparent film.”

“LEECHING”

This comes from some of the plastic in the seat covers dissolving in the air— a process called “leeching.”

Leeching goes on all the time from plastic products, but most times you can’t see it. The stuff'that is leeched are. the chemicals causing harm to the workers.

“We’re not saying that people are in danger from automobile upholstery,” Commoner stressed, “just that more study is needed.”

Accordingly, New York City has just begun to analyze hundreds of consumer products for vinyl chloride and polyvinyl chloride.

“We don’t know if these findings will have any relevance to the public,” said Dr. Edward Ferrand of the New York City Environmental Protection Agency, “but we don’t want to be caught without information in case ' something comes up.”