Half the Nation

In the U.S. debate over compulsory v. voluntary health insurance, one great need has been for facts to show how much voluntary plans have and have not achieved. This week, four experts headed by Dr. Dean A. Clark, director of Massachusetts General Hospital, published a summary of their findings after ten months of digging for the Senate Subcommittee on Health. The facts:

P:Half the people of the U.S. (75 million) are covered to some extent; 23 million have only hospitalization insurance; 31 million are covered for hospital and some surgical bills; 17 million get limited medical care in addition. Less than 4,000,000 are insured against virtually all medical (but usually not dental) expenses.

P:Insurance paid about one-fourth of the nation's $2 billion private-hospital bills in 1949; it paid one-tenth of the $2 1/4 billion doctors' bills, practically nothing toward the $2 billion bill for dentists, special nurses, drugs and appliances.

P:The administrative cost of operating voluntary plans ranges from 7-c- to 21-c- of the subscriber's dollar. Striking exception: insurance companies take an average expense-nick of 45-c- from each policy dollar paid in by individual (not group) subscribers.

P:The more limited plans, stressing only surgery and hospital care, result in increased use of surgery and hospitals. They do little to encourage preventive medicine and regular checkups for early diagnosis.

P:The coverall plans have not led to overuse or abuse of medical facilities. Their subscribers use an average $30 worth of medical and hospital care a year--the same as everybody else in the U.S.

Dr. Clark's factfinders carefully avoided making recommendations. But, they thought, the facts argued that the most comprehensive medical insurance is good for the subscriber, can improve health through preventive medicine and help to get good doctors and facilities into sections now neglected.

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