”

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

THE WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER WORKER

"The Big Lie About Medical Insurance”

percentage of the population has this kind of coverage? A total of
3,379,379 — or just 18 percent.

And what kind of coverage is this lucky 18 percent getting? A
remarkable survey, recently completed in Hamilton, Ont., suggests

that they are covered for less than one quarter of their total health
costs.

This exhaustive and detailed study involving a carefully selected
sample of almost 1,000 families was completed last fall by Dr. Theo-
dore Goldberg of the department of political economy, University of
Toronto, with the help of the Steelworkers’ Union. It examined two
different medical plans, each considered excellent in its respective
fields. One was the profit-making Travelers Insurance plan which
covers employees of the Steel Company of Canada. The other was
the non-profit, doctor-sponsored Physicians’ Services Incorporated plan
which covers employees of the International Harvester Co.

The study revealed that the PSI plan, generally considered the
best obtainable, paid only 23.5 percent of the average total health
costs of the families who subscribed to it.

Yet the people who have PSI, or its equivalent, are well off
compared with the remaining five million who have some lesser form
of private health insurance. These people are being deluded if they
believe the medical association’s phrase about “reasonable medical
insurance.”

The Hamilton survey revealed that the Travelers Insurance plan
paid only 12.9 percent of the average family’s total health costs. This
is reasonable? Yet, compared with many, this is an excellent and
reputable company. As | showed in a previous page in MACLEAN‘S,
there are hundreds of thousands who haven’‘t got even this — who
are saddled witli loophole-riddled policies which can be canceled
at the company’s whim.

It is worth repeating these statistics, in the light of the twaddle
being published today about free-enterprise insurance: ONLY 18 PER-
CENT OF ALL CANADIANS ENJOY THE BEST KIND OF PRIVATE PLAN.
AND EVEN THIS KIND OF PLAN PAYS LESS THAN ONE QUARTER OF
A FAMILY’S TOTAL ANNUAL HEALTH COSTS.

Total annual health costs, of course, include everything from drugs
to dental work. But even setting aside all this and sticking simply
to Physicians’ Services, the Hamilton figures are revealing. THE PSI
PLAN PAID ONLY 58.7 PERCENT OF ALL DOCTORS’ BILLS. THE TRAVEL-
ERS’ PLAN PAID ONLY 30.4 PERCENT.

These statistics are pretty shattering. For years the opponents of
a national health scheme — such as the Canadian Chamber of Com-
merce — have been telling us that in a vigorous individualistic society
(as opposed to the old bogey, the Welfare State) it ought to be each
citizen’s right — nay, his responsibility — to choose his own kind of
medical plan. Now we discover that he really hasn’t got the choice.
Unless he joins the army or enters a mental home he can’t get the
kind of all-inclusive policy so many people obviously desire.

A Toronto machinist named David Hall, for instance, thought he
had provided for his family. When one of his children contracted a
rare disease called cystic fibrosis his company plan paid 80 percent
of his drug bills. But then Hall’s company folded. Health plans aren’t
portable, and when he took a new job he discovered that the new
plan, like most private plans, doesn’t cover pre-existing diseases. Now
he’s faced with drug bills of more than $1,500 a year.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

“Dispute”

. a violation of the historic prin-

Canadian labor contends
the CMU-SIU dispute is pure-
ly a Canadian matter and
should be settled in Canada.
It warns that American inter-
ference in the matter is a
threat to the good relations
between international unions
that span the U.S.-Canadian
border.

Meanwhile, the Canadian
government is understood to
view the lake dispute with
serious concern. It regards
the U.S. boycott of Canadian
ships as a threat to trade and

tion to the SIU to stop bother-
ing CMU ships.

At the same time, the Pear-
son-Kennedy accord produced
high-level efforts to bring
CLC President Claude Jodoin
to a meeting with AFL-CIO
President George Meany.
They met last week in Wash-
ington, aired the dispute, but
did not reach any agreement.
They are expected to meet
again after the Norris report
is available.

EXPOSE!

From The Sunday Telegraph, &
London:

Sir Solly Zuckerman, sec- =
retary of the London Zoo,
wrote a learned treatise on
‘apes called Sex Life of the

_ Hall could join PSI, which does cover pre-existing diseases; but
like most plans it doesn’t cover the cost of drugs. Yet drugs now ac-
count for almost one third of the average man’s medical expenses.
I know of a high-school teacher in North York, Ont., suffering from
a skin condition, who has paid more than $3,000 over nine years
for cortisone and ointment. He has PSI, but it doesn’t cover him. |
know of another couple — he’s a Polish-born bakery worker — who
had the foresight to buy what they thought was the best plan going.
They didn’t foresee her nervous breakdown. Now they spend $13

of their $110-a-week income on drugs. Have these people got “reason-
able coverage’?

There are various kinds of medical catastrophies, financially
crippling, for which it is difficult to get coverage. There’s been a lot
of hearty laughter over socialist medical schemes which pay for arti-
ficial limbs — but what kind of a fix would you be in if one of your
growing children lost a leg? He’d need a new one every year, and.
they aren‘t cheap. Yet many plans — PSI is one— don’t cover this. |
know of one crippled girl who requires two limbs annually; they're

in the $800 range. This family is dependent on the charity of the
Shriners.

But most people don’t want charity. Like Terry Louth, a Toronto
chartered accountant who has suffered through five major operations
for an ulcerous condition, they want to pay. It’s true, as the medical
association keeps saying, that no needy person has to go without
medica! care. But must Canadians be beggared before getting help?
The Louths are certainly needy today. They spent all their savings —
$3,000 — sold their car, furniture, everything, before accepting wel-
fare. Yes, they had a group insurance plan, too. It wasn’t enough.

These are extreme cases, but then insurance is supposed to guard
against extremes. In health insurance, even this isn’t enough. One
of the flaws in most insurance company major medical plans is that
because of cleductible clauses they don’t cover normal medical bills
— the doctor's house calls, the annual physical checkup. The companies
say they want to eliminate small claims. But, for most people, it’s
the smail bills that add up to big ones over the year.

There is little evidence that those with a vested interest in main-
taining the status que have any desire to change it. Premier Robarts
of Ontario recently introduced a “medicare” bill which, for all the
drum-beating, is little more than a minor amendment to the insurance
act. It does not affect those who already have some form of plan
and it extends insurance to those who can’t afford it only as a
clearly-defined charity, complete with means test. It seems to have
been dictated by the doctors, for it bears a suspicious resemblance
to the recommendations made three months earlier by the Ontario
Medical Association.

If the medical profession can come up with a privately admin-
istered scheme that gives the kind of coverage the British people
enjoy, well and. good. If they can’t, then we ought to get on with the
business of socialized medicine as quickly as possible. You can’t
manipulate statistics forever. You can’t maintain day in and day out
the pleasant pretense that everything is grand when it obviously isn’t.
Let the doctors and their friends put up or let them shut up. But let
them stop hoodwinking the public.

Reprinted by courtesy of MACLEAN’S MAGAZINE

IWA PLANT COMMITTEE and Shop Stewards at the North Canadian Forest Products
Plywood plant in Grande Prairie, Alberta. Group seated left to right: Irvine Mayer, Secre-
tary, Plant Committee; Mrs. Margaret Toew, John Peebles, Chairman, Plant Committee;
second row: Anthony Deutch, Orville Christensen, Louis Gallant, Kenneth Lawrence; back