MEDICINE

LEADS THE WAY

by Gary Handy

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This article, on the dangers to freedom from the

current assault on the private practice of medIcine, has
been reprinted by permission from the February 1976

Bulletin of The John Birch Society.

1976 by The John Birch Society

PREVIEW
There are more physicians and surgeons who belong to The John
Birch Society than people who earn their daily bread in any other way.
And we believe there are two significant reasons for the interesting
phenomenon.
First, we think the ambitious young man who decides to become a
doctor has a willingness to work hard, and an expectation of doing so,
for both the material and the spiritual rewards he hopes to get out of
life. And he is thereby more inclined to be an individualist instead of a
collectivist in his ideological outlook than are the youth who select - or
simply fall into - most other occupations.
Second, the practicing members of the medical profession, be
cause of the nature of the services they perform, have a most unusual
relationship to the clientele that they serve. They are automatically,
and on the whole justifiably, accorded a very high degree of respect by
those from whom they receive their income. In general they have no
bosses (except sometimes, of course and perhaps, the ones they
marry!). So our doctors are in a practical position to be more indepen
dent of "outside" views and pressures than are other toilers in this vale
of interdependence by individuals on their customers, their creditors,
their comml)nities, and the commanding circumstances created by
their own desires.
This even holds true with regard to so world-shaking a matter as
the decision of a doctor to join The John Birch Society. We confess to
having observed with pride for many years the proof of that assertion
by one conclusive. illustration. Quite a famous physician in Cam
bridge, Massachusetts, well known by all his friends as a staunch
Conservative, had owned and operated for decades a very successful

"Gee, Professor," Dr. X would re

and prosperous private clinic, with
ply without hesitation, Tm sorry to
two associate doctors and the neces
hear how you feel about it. But I am
sary auxiliary staff to round out the
afraid you are mistaken. Perhaps it
particular service that he offered.
is you rather than the Birch literature
The preponderant majority of his cli
that is out of place Goodness knows
ents consisted 'of professors, instruc
there are plenty of excellent doctors
tors, and administrators of Harvard
and clinics in this area where you
U niversity. Which, as some of you
would not be bothered by seeing a
readers may have heard, does have a
single Birch pamphlet. So please let
reputation for leaning slightly to the
me keep mine, since you will have no
left. But all was happy and serene
difficulty in finding some other
within this congregation until, some
doctor. Also, if you discover that in
fifteen years ago, Dr. X became a
due course you can simply ignore and
member of The John Birch Society.
forget about the Birch material being
And he theR began to spread Birch
available for those who might want
literature profusely amid the other
to read it, of course I shall be glad to
reading matter on the tables in his
waiting room.
take care of your medical needs to
the best of my ability exactly the
Whereupon quite a procession of
same as in the past." Meeting that
complainants soon began, with signs
response, the complaints soon wilted
of there being some organized
away. The Birch literature continued
planning rather than mere spontane
to appear, and so did Dr. X's pa
ity behind it. As Professor A came to
tients. Until, some ten years later, at
have his A-lements treated, he would
the age of eighty, despite still having
get Dr. X aside in most friendly
a plethora of such patients always
fashion and deliver his veiled ulti
matum somewhat as follows. "We
waiting for appointments, Dr. X
simply retired and closed the clinic understand, Doctor, that you have
without, to the best of our informed
joined The John Birch Society. And
knowledge about the matter, having
while we disagree, that is certainly
lost a single client because he was a
your privilege. But many of your
Bircher.
most friendly clients like myself do
feel that all of this Birch material
Which brings us to the real point
spread so conspicuously here in your
of this preview. It is that physicians
waiting room ought to be removed, , and surgeons are in position to exert
because it is really out of place."
more influence on the side of ameri-

The John Birch Society Bulletin is published monthly by The John Birch Society, Incor
porated, 395 Concord Avenue, Belmont, Massachusetts 02178. Eight dollars of each mem
ber's annual dues is allocated to pay for a subscription. Subscription rates to non-members
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airmail, eighteen dollars per year. Copyright 1976 by The John Birch Society.
Individual copies are available at the following prices: Up to 9 copies, 75 each; 10 to 99
copies, 60 each; 100 to 999 copies, 50 each; 1,000 or more copies, 45 each. They may be
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Belmont, Massachusetts 02178, or American Opinion, San Marino, California 91108.

canism against collectivism than any

other group of our citizens as a whole.
The basic struggle, in our once glorious
home of the brave and the free, is over
one comprehensive and fundamental
difference. Do we restore and main
tain this nation as a republic, in which
all of our people are ruled alike by fIXed
laws in true accordance with a written
Constitution? Or do we let it be trans
formed completely into a democracy,
in which all rights of all of its citizens
are subject to change at the arbitrary
whims or self-seeking desires of dem
agogic politicians, who can temporar
ily sway the thinking of uninformed
and cruelly misled multitudes?
There is, to be sure, an underlying
entity in these opposing forces which
must be fully recognized. We identify
it as the Master Conspiracy. Those of
us on the americanist side of this war
are fighting for principles in which
we believe. While our enemies - not
their gullible dupes and ignoramuses
who form the base of their power, but
the Insiders at the top - have abso
lutely no concern about collectivism
or socialism or even communism, ex
cept as means and fronts whereby
they can make of themselves little
gods on earth. And all history has

proved that such criminal megalo

maniacs can acquire the kind of
pseudo-divinity they crave only by es
tablishing it on a base of collectivist
welfarism - whether that welfarism
be called "bread and circuses" by
Caesar, or "egalite et fraternite" by Ie
Duc d'Orleans, or "Health, Educa
tion, and Welfare" by Nelson Rocke
feller. So all who oppose such tyranny
must learn that we are not really
fighting an ideology, but a viciously
criminal Conspiracy, accustomed to
using any means, no matter how mer
ciless, to achieve its ends.
In opposing the collectivist mea
sures now being so ruthlessly imposed
upon us, as in fighting all other steps
of the latter-day Illuminati towards a
brutally absolute one-world tyranny,
there is no question about the Ameri
can medical profession being in posi
tion to lead the way. As your editor
was quite aggressively pointing out
several years before The John Birch
Society was even founded. But it also
could lead the way in the opposite di
rection. So, for a further appeal to
these innate individualists as to
which course they will take, we now
turn this podium over to Gary Handy
for his foreword to this Bulletin.

MEDICINE LEADS THE WAY

by Gary R. Handy

come of the struggle against this

pestilence certainly will determine
the future of the medical profession
and may help to determine the fu
ture of all of our free institutions.
In past issues of this Bulletin, we
have discussed in some depth the
conspiratorial drive to convert the
United States into a totalitarian dic
tatorship. That goal cannot be
reached, of course, until every insti
tution and profession is brought un-

I do solemnly swear by that

which I hold most sacred: That I
will be loyal to the profession of
medicine....
The Hippocratic Oath

America's physicians and surgeons

are now facing a malignancy more
severe than any epidemic. The out-

der the rigidly authoritarian control

of central planners in the federal
government. Freedom of choice and
enterprise must be excised totally
from our society. And even the most
intrinsically personal decisions must
be left to the arbitrary control of
federal bureaucrats.
The destruction of our indepen
dent system of health care is an
'
essential element of this drive. For
the Master Conspiracy cannot suc
ceed in enslaving America until every
physician has been made an em
ployee of the government and every
citizen made dependent upon the
government for all medical care.
Without any doubt, the American
medical profession, as presently con
stituted, has been one of the most
impenetrable roadblocks in the path
of the treacherous schemers working
to sovietize America. Physicians, due
to the very nature of their profes
sion, are tremendously independent.
And as a result of the high standards
which they have set for themselves,
and their role as relievers of suffer
ing, they are highly respected and
command a great following. In fact,
opinion polls indicate that the physi
cian is the most respected man in the
community.
Doctors have played leading or im
portant roles in most of the key
events in our nation's history. From
the winning of the revolution to the
present time, medical men have
helped to champion the cause of in
dividual liberty. Even today, the
membership of The John Birch Soci
ety is composed of a higher percent
age of physicians than any other
profession. A fact which certainly is
exemplified by the COUNCIL of the
Society.

Through the largely unrestricted

efforts of our medical profession,
Americans today enjoy the finest
system of health care anywhere in
the world. Many diseases which
troubled mankind for centuries have
been all but eradicated. And progress
is being made in the struggle against
other grievous maladies.
Undoubtedly the preeminent fac
tor in the creation of our tremendous
health care system has been freedom
of choice. In our country, patients
always have had the right to select
their own physicians and even to
choose between various methods of
treatment. Doctors have selected the
branch of medicine or field of re
search that they desired to practice as
well as the size and location of their
clientele, with their choice contingent
only upon their own capability, or
preference, or natural economic
forces. If the current attack on our
medical system succeeds, all of this
will change drastically - and soon!
For the American people are being
subjected to a well orchestrated prop
aganda campaign based upon trick
ery and outright deception to con
vince them that our private health
care system is far too inefficient,
expensive, and inequitable. Basing
their arguments upon a completely
fraudulent humanitarianism, In
siders of the Master Conspiracy and
leftists in the medical profession,
mass media, and Congress are calling
for decisive government intervention
in medical care. It is their intention to
create a mandatory health system in
the United States similar to the ex
tremely dictatorial and grossly inef
ficient systems which exist in Great
Britain, Soviet Russia, and other na
tions in Europe.

Concurrently with this propa

ganda blitz, an equally vicious cam
paign is being waged to condition the
more than 330,000 physicians in
America to accept ever increasing
amounts of government regimenta
tion of their private practices.
Through regulations associated with
various welfare programs, the feder
al government has begun instructing
physicians as to whom they may
treat, how they may treat them, the
fees they may charge, and even what
drugs they may prescribe. And fed
eral bureaucrats are setting up pro
fessional review bodies to see that
doctors toe the mark.
Although government regulation
of medicine is new to the United
States, it is one of the classic tech
niques for converting a nation into a
dictatorship. In 1883 the chancellor
of the German empire, Prince Otto
von Bismarck, succeeded in having
compulsory health insurance en
acted. Sold to the German people as
being absolutely necessary for their
security, this program served as a
springboard for the adoption of
many other "humanitarian programs"
- all of which served to increase
governmental control over the people.
And this same bellwether approach
subsequently has been utilized for
these same purposes in many other
countries.
Using the Communist methodol
ogy of patient gradualism, promoters
of nationalized medicine have been
content to go after their goals in a
piecemeal fashion. And having now
achieved much of their program,
they have intensified their efforts to
have a comprehensive national health
care and planning bill enacted. Be
fore we examine any of these current

proposals, however, let us first dis

cuss the inroads that already have
been made against our system of
independent medical care.
A primary step, of course, in
bringing any profession or industry
under control of the federal govern
ment is to make that group depen
dent upon the state for financial
remuneration for services rendered.
The inauguration of the Medicare
and Medicaid programs served that
purpose very well indeed.

Medicare

Enacted in 1965, Medicare was the

first major nationwide program of
government-financed health care in
the United States. With a program
administered directly from Washing
ton, Medicare was designed to
provide federally funded medical
treatment for the elderly. Prior to the
passage of the Medicare legislation,
however, there existed substantial
data indicating that such a program
was totally unnecessary. And as no
grant of power had ever been given to
the federal government to become
involved in medical care, this legisla
tion clearly was unconstitutional. But
as most demagogues have learned,
there is something almost irresistible
about an impassioned plea in behalf
of the elderly.
From the inception of the pro
gram, Medicare proponents had as
sured concerned taxpayers that an
nual costs for this program would not
exceed five billion dollars. Like
all other government programs, Med
icare requires tremendous amounts
of paperwork. Indeed, the time and
expense involved in filling out Med
icare forms for reimbursement for
medical services was directly respon-

sible for a more than sixteen percent

escalation in hospital costs during
Medicare's first year of operation.
Similar cost increases were experi
enced by physicians in their private
practice. Many private hospitals and
individuaJ doctors threatened refusal
to treat Medicare patients because of
the paperwork involved. And some
followed through on their promises.
It is axiomatic, of course, that
whenever a group of citizens believes
they have a right to certain services or
products at little or no expense to
themselves, the demand for those
goods and services will increase
dramatically and unnaturally. Not
only the truly ill but also the malin
gerers make more frequent demands
upon the medical profession, com
pletely upsetting the consumption
balance established through personal
economic considerations. And in
creased demand in a marketplace
with an inflexible supply always
causes an increase in prices.
Medicare and other government
health care plans have severely
strained the fiscal stability of many
hospitals by allowing recipients of
their programs ("clients") to accu
mulate millions of dollars in hospital
bills, which the federal government
has either underpaid or in some cases
refused to pay at all. Conversely,
when the government does reimburse
hospitals and physicians, it does so on
a "cost-plus" or customary charge
basis. Because this money is coming
from the seemingly endless coffers
of the federal government, little
compunction is shown about increas
ing costs and charges to obtain as
much money as possible. As conser
vative columnist M. Stanton Evans
has observed:

These prices have zoomed

upward in direct proportion to
the flow of cost-plus funds for
Medicare and Medicaid to phy
sicians and hospitals, in which
medical providers are reim
bursed according to their "cus
tomary" charges and costs of
operation. The all-too-natural
result of these arrangements is
to make sure that customary
charges and operational costs
are rapidly increased to absorb
the available money.

Medicare's cost-plus system of

payment has precipitated directly an
increase in hospital expenses. Be
cause hospitals are paid a daily rate
related to their own operational costs,
administration can no longer deny
demands for higher wages or more
elaborate equipment on the basis that
the money is lacking. They need only
to increase their operational costs by
spending more money for these
items. The health care consumer who
is not governmentally supported has
had to pay these artificially inflated
costs either directly or through in
creased insurance premiums. To say
nothing about the hard-earned tax
monies which support government
medical programs in the first place.
Direct annual expenditures for
Medicare, which were not to exceed
five billion dollars, were costing tax
payers nearly double that amount by
1970. And Medicare costs currently
are running at more than fourteen
billion dollars per year, with esti
mates that the costs will hit twenty
billion dollars in the next few years.
It is no wonder that since 1972 the
overall cost of health care has risen
by more than twenty percent. The

physician component of the Con

sumer Price Index has risen by more
than seven percent annually while
costs for hospital care have con
tinued to increase by fourteen per
cent each year.
Seizing upon their constituents'
natural concern over rising medical
costs, many leftist politicians, led by
Senator Edward Kennedy, have ad
vocated more governmental interven
tion into medicine as a panacea. Un
fortunately, some well-meaning citi
zens, not understanding that too
much government is the root cause of
virtua1.lY all of the problems extant
in the health care field, have sup
ported these proposals.

For instance, California's Medi

caid program, known as Medi-Cal,
had more than 2.4 million recipients
by 1971 - some twelve percent of the
state's population - and the costs
for the program had doubled within
four years. The San Francisco Ex
aminer warned that "The system
could bankrupt the state . . ." Dur
ing the fiscal year of 1969-1970,
there were 141 claims filed for every
100 persons enrolled in the program.
By mid-1969, a little more than three
years after the program had been put
into operation, more than 66 million
Medi-Cal claims had been processed.
Incredibly, Medi-Cal allowed a much
wider range of benefits than the
average workingman could afford.
Of course, the tax burden of the
workingman was increased to pay for
these government health benefits.
The situation in California was an
example of conditions throughout
the nation.
Medicaid had been passed, how
ever, in the face of evidence clearly
demonstrating that it was not
needed. At the time of its enactment,
more than ninety percent of all
Americans were covered by some
form of private health insurance. In
addition, statistics proved that be
fore Medicaid and Medicare the
"poor" had received adequate med
ical attention. As Dr. Robert M. Sade
observed in an article for the excel
lent Private Practice magazine for
October 1974:

Medicaid ...
After succeeding in having the
Medicare program enacted, as the
initial piece of the nationalized med
icine mosaic, the Conspiracy directed
its efforts towards the passage of a
more far-reaching bill. Using the
same phony humanitarian appeal,
the Insiders and their Communist
subordinates proposed the creation
of a federal program to provide
health care for the "needy." Their
efforts led to the enactment of the
Medicaid program. The administra
tion of this program is left to the
individual states, which pay part of
the costs on a matched-fund basis.
Naturally, the results have been dis
astrous.
Between 1968 and 1975, the num
ber of Medicaid recipients increased
from 8 million to 24.7 million, while
federal and state outlays increased
from 3.7 billion dollars annually to
more than 12.6 billion dollars. In
deed, Medicaid nearly has bank
rupted some state governments.

A government survey during

the years 1963-1964 correlated
age-adjusted hospital admission
rates with income levels. The
survey disclosed that families
with incomes under $2,000 a

employee and every citizen depen

dent upon the federal government
for all medical needs - is the sole
purpose of these programs. Medicine
is being used as a stalking horse to
bring about the conversion of our
Republic into a totalitarian dictator
ship. And as we shall see, Medicare
and Medicaid already have laid the
groundwork for even more lethal in
fusions of government regulation in
to medicine.

year had 124 hospital admis

sions per 1,000 people. In the
families with a near poverty in
come of $2,000-4,000 a year
there were 142 admissions per
1, 000. These figures contrast
with hospital admissions in
families with incomes over
$10,000: there were 120 admis
sions per 1, 000 in this group.
Length of stay correlated nega
tively with income: the highest
income group had fewer days in
the hospital than the other
groups.

PSRO ...
Now that a substantial number of
physicians and surgeons had become
accustomed to receiving compensa
tion from the federal government
for medical services rendered to cer
tain classes of people, the next piece
of the conspiratorial mosaic was put
cunningly into place. This involved
the creation of the Professional
Standards Review Organizations
(PSRO's) in 1972. Passed as an ob
scure amendment to a bill increasing
Social Security benefits, his legisla
tion established a nationwide system
of PSRO's virtually to dictate pro
cedures for all phases of medical
practice to physicians receiving pay
ments from the government under
any federal health care plan. In es
sence, PSRO's place a federal med
ical bureaucrat appointed by the De
partment of Health, Education, and
Welfare between doctor and patient,
interfering with a heretofore sacro
sanct relationship.
Under PSRO requirements, phy
sicians must consult published stan
dards to determine the medical regi
men they can pursue. All of these
standards are based upon normative
situations, virtually eliminating any
personal decision-making by either

Data from a later study indicated

that more than 68 percent of the low
income group saw a physician as com
pared with 69 percent in the middle
income group and 70 percent in the
high-income group. During the year
when these statistics were obtained,
the lower-income group visited a phy
sician on an average of five times,
while the middle group had four vis
its, and the high-income group visited
a physician on an average of 3.7
times. All of which goes to show that
there were absolutely no sound rea
sons for the creation of Medicaid.
The actual reasons for the crea
tion of the Medicare and Medicaid
programs have nothing to do with
medical or economic necessity. The
results of these government health
programs, including increased medi
cal costs, an expanded federal bu
reaucracy, government regulation of
doctors and hospitals, and higher
taxes, are not merely incidental to
these programs - they are the pri
mary goals for which the programs
were created. Complete governmen
tal control of medicine - that is, to
have every physician a government

doctor or patient. Obviously, stan

dardization of medical care can re
sult only in mediocrity. It is no won
der that some physicians angrily have
labeled these standards "a PSRO
cook-book."
Writing in The Review Of The
News for October 10, 1973, Constitu
tional scholar Dan Smoot discussed
the control over physicians that has
been given to PSRO.

An article which appeared in The

Boston Globe on January 12, 1976,
discussed another aspect of the
PSRO program. This Globe piece
pointed out that the Bay State
PSRO, acting upon federal instruc
tions and pursuant to a 3.2 million
dollar federal contract, had just fin
ished collecting data that "would re
veal for the first time, and in vast
detail, patterns of actual doctor and
hospital behavior in treating Medi
care and Medicaid patients."
These data include statistics con
cerning the drug prescription and
medical treatment habits of indi
vidual physicians. Indeed, virtually
every aspect of medical care and
even areas classified by the Bay
State PSRO as mistreatment - un
necessary surgery or hospitalization
- were examined. And the chairman
of the PSRO committee on data and
research had informed the Globe
that it probably would be necessary
to disclose data identifying the indi
vidual doctors and hospitals as vital
"to satisfy the legitimate rights of
consumers to know what kind of ser
vice they are buying."
From the statements above, it can
be seen clearly that PSRO is in keep
ing with the classic pattern for estab
lishing federal control over any por
tion of the private sector. In PSRO,
the federal government has followed
up its financing of medical care with
stringent regulation of the physicians
and hospitals providing treatment.
And through PSRO it has established
the mechanism for reviewing the ac
tions of doctors and hospitals to see
that they comply with governmental
guidelines. Threatened publication
of statistics indicating noncompli
ance, although such noncompliance

The P.S.R.O.examiners can

search through a doctor's files
and records - not just business
files, but also the traditionally
privileged and confidential
medical records on patients.
And the P.S.R.O. examiner
needs no search warrant, court
order, or other authority to
make such searches. He does
not need to show probable cause
to believe, or even to allege be
lief, that the doctor has done
anything wrong. All the ex
aminer needs is a desire to make
the search, and an identifica
tion card.
In fact, the P.S.R.O. exam
iner can second-guess a doctor's
professional decision about
treating a patient, and can
penalize him for having made
the decision - penalize him by
denying him payment for the
services r:endered, or by recover
ing payments if already made.A
P.S.R.O.examiner can overrule
a doctor's professional decision
- order him not to perform an
operation he had decided to per
form; order him to change the
medicines he had prescribed; or
der him to hospitalize, or not to
hospitalize, a patient.

might well be the result of a physi

cian providing superior medical care,
undoubtedly is intended to be used as
a coercive tool to eliminate any ves
tigial independence on the part of
physicians.

National Health Insurance .

The next step sequentially in na
tionalizing medicine is to extend cov
erage of federal health programs
from the "poor" and "aged" to
everyone else. Not unexpectedly, the
major legislative proposals to accom
plish that very goal have come from
Senator Edward Kennedy. One Ken
nedy bill, first introduced in 1970
and still being promoted vigorously,
is entitled the Health Security Act.
Actually written by the Committee
for National Health Insurance,
which was headed by Communist
Walter Reuther, this legislation is
supported by some of the most notori
ous radicals in the nation. Included in
this group are Ralph Abernathy, John
Kenneth Galbraith, Arthur Goldberg,
Clark Kerr, Mrs. Martin Luther King,
Carl Stokes, and others of the same
revolutionary stripe.
Compulsory for all Americans, the
Kennedy bill would eliminate private
insurance plans. Its comprehensive
health benefits would provide unlim
ited coverage for physicians' visits
and care, including surgery, and for
hospital treatment. Within cer
tain very generous limits, nursing
home care and hospital psychiatric
treatment would be covered. Also,
proposed benefits include payment
to physicians for psychiatric care and
for up to twenty visits to a doctor for
each illness. And most of the cost for
eye glasses, medical ambulance ser
vices, physiotherapy, and home

10

health care would be paid by the

government.
It is no wonder that conservative
estimates of the initial annual cost
of implementing the Kennedy plan
run as high as eighty billion dollars.
The program would be financed
from general revenues, employee
contributions, and payroll taxes. It is
only fair to point out, however, that
the actual cost for every other gov
ernment health program has been
grossly underestimated.
Kennedy and his fellow collabora
tors are pushing for enactment of
this financially disastrous legislation
at a time when the federal budget is
floating towards four hundred bil
lion dollars, with enormous annual
deficits. And government, a com
pletely unproductive parasite capable
only of appropriating wealth, is now
taking nearly forty-four percent of
our total personal income and absorb
ing thirty-seven percent of our Gross
National Product - to say nothing
of the effects of the hidden tax
of inflation. Kennedy's National
Health Insurance plan would push
the share of the GNP consumed by
government from thirty-seven to
more than forty-five percent all by
itself.
An analysis of Kennedy's health
bill done by the Social Security Ad
ministration more than three years
ago estimated the cost of this pro
gram for a family of four at $1,271
per annum. Congressman Philip M.
Crane, commenting in restrospect on
the exorbitant cost, declared:
At that time, the average
family in the United States was
paying $550 per year for its med
ical care including insurance

premiums. Today, 90% of our

population is covered with
health insurance.And that fig
ure has been increasing.

Senator Kennedy's concern is not

economic, however, but rather for
the centralization of control over the
entire medical profession in the
hands of the federal government.
Anxious not to be outdone by a Ken
nedy, other politicians have jumped
on the socialized medicine band
wagon with programs of their own.
Richard Nixon outlined his offi
cial plan for a National Health In
surance Partnership (NHIP) in a
Presidential message to the Congress
on February 18, 1971. More limited in
scope than Kennedy's proposal, but
just as compulsory, the Nixon plan
would have cost taxpayers more than
forty billion dollars annually, while
establishing extensive new regula
tions over physicians, hospitals, and
patients.
Other plans, differing only slightly
in nature, aimed at the same ultimate
goal, have been introduced with regu
larity by radical members of Con
gress such as Senators Jacob Javitz
and Claiborne Pell. With consum
mate hypocrisy, the promoters of na
tionalized medicine have vociferous
ly acclaimed Britain's National
Health Service as a paradigm to be
emulated by all civilized countries.
Instead of opposing these nefar
ious programs, opportunistic leaders
of the American Medical Associa
tion, throwing integrity to the wind
and in so doing sounding a possible
death knell for the medical profes
sion, actually have authored their
own "compromise" health care plan.
Arguing that their bill is voluntary

and limited, the AMA obviously was

not concerned with either the addi
tional expense of their program or
the increased regulation of their
profession.
The AMA had followed a similar
pattern in dealing with the Medicare
and Medicaid legislation. After some
initial opposition to these dangerous
acts, the AMA reversed course and
supported the bills. AMA leaders did
claim, after enactment, that Con
gress had gone further than it said
it would. Another major setback
for the medical profession occurred
in 1974 when the AMA opposed re
peal of the PSRO's. In the face of a
powerful and relentless enemy, the
AMA clearly has abdicated its re
sponsibilities.
Responding to its cowardice and
compromise, physicians have been
dropping out of the AMA at a rapid
rate. The last time dues were in
creased, more than twelve thousand
members refused to maintain their
membership. In 1974, four thousand
members dropped out, leaving less
than half of the nation's physicians
as AMA members. Attendance at the
1975 AMA Annual Convention was
off nearly eighty percent from just a
decade ago. And all of these statis
tics are indicative of the fact that
America's physicians want strong,
bold leaders who will accept no sub
stitute for victory in the fight to
preserve an independent medical
profession.
The most recent piecemeal ap
proach to national health insurance
was proposed on January 19, 1976,.by
President Gerald Ford in his State of
the Union Address. He called for
health insurance to cover "catas
trophic" illnesses for the elderly. If

11

Ford's program is adopted, we cer

tainly can expect that there soon will
be a demand for an extension of
coverage to everyone else.

British Health Service

Because media and political pro

moters of nationalized medicine
have waxed rhapsodic over the Na
tional Health Service in Great Brit
ain, we can be certain that it is a
system very similar to the one which
they intend to impose in the United
States. But a close examination of
the National Health Service reveals
that it is a fraud and disaster of
monumental proportions. It has suc
ceeded only in making every physi
cian an overworked and underpaid
employee of the government.
In 1975, a party of American doc
tors and Congressmen made a fact
finding visit to England to study
NHS firsthand. Their findings were
reported in the September, 1975 issue
of Private Practice magazine. Some
of what they learned has been incor
porated into the following paragraphs.
Established in 1948, pursuant to
the National Health Service Act of
1946, the initial NHS budget was 148
million pounds. Today costs exceed
4.5 billion pounds, and the Labor
government has promised to increase
the budget at the rate of ten percent
each year. By some official esti
mates, salaries and administrative
expenses of the government bureau
crats who run the NHS absorb nearly
thirty percent of its budget.
Overutilization precipitated by the
fact that there is no charge to the
patients using the NHS has created
huge waiting lists (over seven hun
dred thousand persons on these lists
last fall) for virtually all needed

slll'gery. The fact that services are

free also encourages patients to re
main in the hospital much longer than
necessary, thus further exacerbating
the problem of overutilization.
Many persons desperately needing
treatment for malignancies or other
pressing medical problems have ex
pired before receiving lifesaving mea
sures. In some cases, these individuals
already had waited months for their
tum for the "free" medical treat
ment being paid for by their taxes.
The NHS Ombudsman reported on
the case of a woman who had waited
months for open-heart surgery. After
finally being called into the hospital,
she was discharged without surgery
due to crowding of the surgical sched
ule. Four and a half months later, she
was readmitted, only to be discharged
again four days later. Scheduled to
enter the hospital for a third time
several months after the second inci
dent, her surgery was again cancelled.
She died two days after this third
cancellation. This particular case is
very typical of the NHS.
One orthopedic surgeon reported
that any older person needing a hip
replacement will probably die before
getting to the top of the list. It takes
an average of nine months just to get
an appointment with an orthopedist.
Other specialties are not much better
off, with waiting lists for hospital
admissions ranging from one to two
weeks for acute cases to two to three
years for hernias and other non-life
threatening problems.
Private Practice quoted a promi
nent British physician concerning the
effects of this crowding:
Dr. Charles Loehry, chair
man of the medical staffs at

12

Poole Hospital and Royal Vic

toria Hospital, both in Bourne
mouth, said that crowding has
led to patients who might other
wise have lived dying at home
before they can be admitted;
patients dying in the emergency
rooms after waiting hours for a
bed; cancer patients waiting up
to six weeks for treatment while
their tumors spread; and emer
gency cases smuggled into beds
of patients being operated on, so
when they return from surgery
there is no room for them.Doc
tors call this "musical beds."

It is not at all surprising that

more than two million residents of
Britain have subscribed to private
health insurance, a practice still al
lowed - although under heavy fire
from socialists who want to remove
all vestiges of private medicine. The
waiting lists for the few private
beds in NHS hospitals are much
shorter and are made up of people
willing to pay to obtain quality health
care. Even several of the most vocif
erous opponents of private hospital
beds have resorted to using names
other than their own to get private
beds for themselves or members of
their families.
Conditions under NHS, however,
are no better for the doctor than for
the patient. Indeed, over half of the
physicians in many British hospitals
are foreign-trained. This is due to the
large number of British doctors emi
grating annually. Each year, two ex
aminations are given to qualify Brit
ish doctors for medical practice in
the United States. In 1972, 404 doc
tors took the test; in 1973, 828; in
1974, 1019. And 2517 doctors took this

examination during January of 1975,

the last examination for which we
have figures. But their flight will be
in vain if the American medical pro
fession is nationalized.
The reasons for so many skilled
physicians wanting to leave Britain
are not hard to understand. Not only
are the British hospitals overcrowded,
but many were built in the nine
teenth century as workhouses and
later converted into hospitals. They
are squalid and dirty, lack minimal
fire protection, and much of their
equipment is terribly outdated. A
London Daily Mirror story on NHS
told of patients holding cockroach
races in filthy corridors. Government
bureaucracy has seen to it that it
takes generations to build a new hos
pital. Far more hospital beds were
provided in the twenty-seven years
preceding NHS than in the twenty
seven years since 1948.
With the atrocious food and pa
thetic ancillary services in most Brit
ish hospitals, it is no wonder that so
many dedicated healers are desperate
about the quality of-care received by
their patients. Combining long hours,
low pay, and bureaucratic harass
ment and paper work, the NHS is a
torturous experience for its medical
practitioners.
Indeed, top specialists at hospitals
reach the highest pay grade of 12,000
pounds ($25,000) after fifteen years.
General practitioners, who are not
allowed to see their patients while
they are in the hospital, get no set
salaries. They are paid instead the
equivalent of about $3.46 per year
per patient. The average GP nets
about $10,500 per year. To do so,
however, he must have over three
thousand patients on his list with

13

whom he contracts for unlimited ser

vices. Of course, no physician can
adequately treat three thousand indi
viduals. But physicians are being
paid for quantity, not quality.
Every American physician should
consider carefully the medical situa
tion in Great Britain. For unless all
of them take strong and immediate
steps, the NHS could be the shape of
things to come for the American
medical profession.
Because many enemies of a free
and independent medical profession
are participants in a Master Conspir
acy, their interest is not in medicine
but in total power. They will not limit
their battle plans, therefore, to mere
ly pushing for national health insur
ance. They will use every real and
manufactured problem as. justifica
tion for additional government regu
lation of the medical profession.
For instance, the present dramatic
increase in medical malpractice in
surance rates already is being used as
a pretext for calling for ameliorative
legislation by the federal govern
ment. Such legislation can only in
crease government's size and cost,
while expanding its control over the
medical profession. And federal leg
islation will affect every doctor in
the land. Furthermore, there will be
no opportunity for a physician to
cast a retrospective vote against an

enactment of this kind by changing

the location of his practice. It -is
incumbent upon every medical prac
titioner to guard zealously against
any governmental encroachments
upon his rights as a free man or his
responsibilities as a physician.
The battle to preserve America's
tremendous private medical system is
a vital component of the overall
freedom fight. It is a campaign that
will be won or lost in the United
States. Victory can only be achieved,
however, if every concerned physi
cian joins the battle and exercises his
personal influence.
The John Birch Society has been
engaged in the fight for America for
more than seventeen years. During
that time, we have achieved a num
ber of important victories. But we
need the help of many more truly
good men and women. As we have
pointed out above, the prestige and
following of our nation's doctors
provide them with tremendous poten
tial for playing a vital role in stop
ping the conspiratorial forces which
are working to- destroy our free soci
ety and to enslave us all.
We are exceedingly proud of the
courageous physicians who are mem
bers of The John Birch Society. And
we earnestly and respectfully invite
all other like-minded men of medicine
to join us in this crucial struggle.