enator MURRAY. At the conclusion of the meeting yesterday I ed to you about it, Senator, and as a result of my conversation I believe I told Michael Davis and the other gentlemen that I would not have to be here tomorrow. I will have to check into and see whether I can get them here. enator SMITH. We have on our list Mr. Lasker, I believe, and ous Senators who will speak on the bill. Whereupon, at 5 p. m., the subcommittee adjourned until 9:30 ., Friday, July 11, 1947.) NATIONAL HEALTH PROGRAM FRIDAY, JULY 11, 1947 UNITED STATES SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON HEALTH OF THE COMMITTEE Washington, D. C. The subcommittee met, pursuant to adjournment, at 9:30 a. m., In the committee room, Capitol Building, Senator Forrest C. Donnell presiding. Present: Senators Donnell (presiding), Murray, and Pepper. At the request of Senator Smith, I am presiding this morning since it became necessary for him to be present at a meeting of the Committee on Foreign Relations, and I state he regrets very much his inability to be here this morning, as he was very anxious to attend and it is only because of the meeting of the other committee at which he finds it necessary to be present that he is not here. Is Mr. Albert D. Lasker present? Mr. LASKER. Yes, sir. STATEMENT OF ALBERT D. LASKER, NEW YORK, N. Y. Senator DONNELL. Mr. Lasker, will you please state your name, your address, and business and whether or not you are appearing for some organization or yourself? Mr. LASKER. My name is Albert D. Lasker. My address is 3313 Chrysler Building, New York, N. Y. I am president of the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation. I am appearing for myself. Senator DONNELL. Mr. Lasker, would you tell us, please, also what business you have been in for a number of years? Mr. LASKER. I was for 45 years, most of the time, the head and owner of a large advertising agency of America. Senator DONNELL. What was that? Mr. LASKER. Lord & Thomas-it went out of business when I went out of business. Senator DONNELL. Yes. Mr. LASKER. I was also part owner and helped run several other businesses, such as Pepsodent, Kotex, and Kleenex, and other packaged goods businesses, and I had clients in many others in which I had an interest, many of the largest manufacturing firms in America. Senator DONNELL. Yes. Mr. LASKER. I would say I was owner or part owner or adviser to businesses that ran into the billions during the years. 64431-48-pt. 3-21 1437 Senator DONNELL. Will you proceed, Mr. Lasker? Senator MURRAY. I might add, Mr. Lasker, for many years you hav been interested in the health problems of the Nation, have you not? Mr. LASKER. I have been interested in the general health problem having been attracted to that humanitarian problem through facin health problems not only in my own life but in my own family. Senator MURRAY. And you are appearing at the personal request o the sponsors of this legislation? Mr. LASKER. Oh, yes; I had no idea of appearing until I wa asked to. Senator MURRAY. All right. Senator DONNELL. Proceed, Mr. Lasker. Mr. LASKER. When first invited by members of your committee testify on the various national health bills which you are now con sidering, I was hesitant to accept because, although I have long beer deeply interested in these measures, I could not quite see where qualified as an expert. While my presence here today evidences my own judgment that I do so qualify, I think it is important that outline to you the reasoning which brought me to that judgment and the limitations of my "expertness." Certainly, I cannot qualify as an expert on the technical, clinical, or scientific phases of medical practice. In that respect, it may be we are all in the same boat. Yet I think I do qualify on a number of other grounds. First, I am an expert sufferer, and thus qualified to plead the cause of others who, in their own persons or in the illness of family and close relations, have learned at first hand the agony of severe illness and the manner in which financial difficulties ac centuated and sharpened that agony. In this sense, I am in no way unique. I am certain that all of you here can, in some way, match the experience I want to tell you, ever so briefly, about. As a young man of very modest means. I married. A short time" later my wife was taken with a grave illness-an illness that continued intermittently for 34 years, till her death. Within the first year of that illness, medical bills completely wiped out the small Savings upon which we had so boldly ventured into matrimony. The blow was a staggering one to me. To my sick wife, it was an added burden, a constant worry and concern that no ill person should be asked to bear. I was fortunate in that my business ventures were successful. I was able to stay one jump ahead of the onrushing bills. As a young man in business in a period of economic expansion. I got by. But I know and you know that many millions of others. working on fixed salaries or struggling to make a go of small shops. farms, or limited small businesses, have inevitably gone under wher subjected to the same devastating strain. It was only good fortune that saved me from being overwhelmed by the cost of a major medical disaster. Yet I know even then that I was among the very few so situated. In speaking as one who has had to meet the bills. I am sure I speak of an experience common to us all. Certainly most of you, no matter how well off you may be today, have at some time and in some degree faced this saine problem. It is this very knowledge, that we all are and have been sferers from the inadequacy of provisions for meeting the cost of medical care, that inspires my great confidence in the members of this committee. No matter how strongly I may feel hat one of the bills before you offers a solution and that another does ot, I would be sadly lacking in judgment if I did not fully recognize he fact that both these bills come from men whose minds have met nd agreed on one great principle, namely-and I here quote from he preamble of S. 545 hat it (should be) the policy of the United States to aid the States to make vailable medical, hospital, dental, and public health services to every individual gardless of race or economic status. When disagreement exists as to method and means of achieving an nd, it often happens that the basic agreement as to the end itself is verlooked. If I could make no other point today, I would want to ammer home the all-important fact that in the very act of writing hese bills, there has been a meeting of minds as to purpose. You enators, who are so busy with untold numbers of pressing matters, hich require speedy decision, have earned the gratitude of countless itizens by taking the time and effort to hold these hearings and to eek to frame a final bill that will, in the best possible manner and in he American tradition, carry out this great aim upon which all of on are obviously agreed. While, as a sufferer, I may be qualified to speak emotionally on the eed for implementing this splendid statement of purpose and policy, ne would need further to qualify as an expert to justify taking your ime on a discussion of method and means. I believe I do so qualify is a voter, citizen, and taxpayer, in which latter capacity I have een privileged-thanks to our democratic system and the vast opporunities which America offers its sons-to pay, for a long term of ears, taxes running into large figures. Whichever of these bills you pass or whatever the compromise you eventually arrive at, I shall be privileged—and I mean privileged to pay some portion of the ultinate cost for administration and for direct aid, through my taxes. I think I qualify, too, as an expert because I have spent all of my ife in business, in fairly big business. The businesses I have owned or advised or been a part owner in have employed and still employ ens of thousands of people. Just as you must plan for the welfare of all the people, I have played a part in planning for the welfare of these employees-and that, in many instances, involved their health and the health of their families. Like most other businessmen, I have ong been aware of the fact, you can't miss it if you are in business, hat productivity, the key to the prosperity of employer and employee like, falls whenever sickness strikes. American industry lost about 600,000,000 man-days of productivity ast year because of sickness. Certainly if we worry about reducing he economic losses of strikes, we must worry quite as much if not nore, about such staggering losses from sickness. Even when our employees are not themselves sick, illness of others nay take a cut out of their productivity. Let any member of the amily fall ill, let even the threat of illness, the worry about maybe alling ill, strike any of us and our productivity falls off. As a businessman, I have specialized in distribution and merchanlising. And, of course, that is exactly the problem you are facing up to when you write or rewrite these health bills. You've got to find a way of distributing medical care more widely. The product itself s a universal demand. But 97,000,000 of our citizens can't afford a |