that one. Last winter I had a cold and sore throat which ended in pneumonia, causing a hemorrhage of one lung. Our family doctor sent me to a lung specialist. I had to take 96 capsules which cost 60 cents each, a total of $57 at the drugstore. The insurance company paid $21 to the drugstore but did not pay anything for X-ray, shots, or doctor bills. You can see why the old people need medical care. What I draw does not take care of this. Now my medicine costs $10 a month. I also have sinus and a throat condition. A little help with medical care is surely needed by most of us old people. I just can't pay for hospital insurance. Please help us old people. You may use my name any time or place. We sure need the King-Anderson bill.

Mrs. MABEL BADGLEY.
HARRISON, ARK.

My family has been faced with bills, both from my mother and mother-in-law. My mother, Mrs. Edith Stover, is 80 years old. She became seriously sick in February 1963, while visiting one of my sisters in Houston, Tex. She had to be rushed to the hospital, where her sickness was diagnosed as a liver disease and gallbladder attack. She spent 4 days in the hospital undergoing considerable tests and her bill was $600. She carried insurance with the American Insurance Co. of Dallas, which reimbursed her $30 ($6 a day for a 5-day period). The hospital refused to release her until the bill was paid. Facing this emergency, we children cashed in some bonds we had, and my sister's husband borrowed some money to get her out of the hospital. In June 1963, she incurred a bad knee injury while visiting my brother in Chanute, Kans. The hospital bill came to $300 this time. There was no insurance at all to cover this hospitalization, since she had quit paying $55 in annual premiums to the American Insurance Co. after her experience at the Houston hospital. My mother has no income. Her farm was sold after my father died. Some of the money made from the sale was put into bonds; this has been used up by now. Since she spends time with various members of my family, living in different States, she could probably never get any protection under Kerr-Mills legislation.

OPAL BADGLEY.

BUFFALO, N.Y.

About 4 years ago my wife had a stroke and since then she has lost all her memory. She cannot cook or do her housework as it should be done. I cannot allow her to go out alone, not even to the store right on our corner. I do all the shopping, laundry, cooking, and cleaning. Have a woman come in once a week and do some baking. My wife hides her clothes and then can't find them and thinks that someone comes in at night and takes them. Physically she is in good health, but will not eat enough to keep from losing weight, only weighs 80 pounds dressed. She is 84 years old, and I am 88 January 22, 1964. If I were able to put her in a hospital or nursing home, it would be great. She goes to the doctor once a week-cost $5 per, and I must live on $102 social security per month-it just can't be done. Raise our social security and not the Congressmen's pay. God knows they get enough for the time they spend at their job.

ALBERT J. UPSON.

CLEVELAND, OHIO.

My sister's husband had a serious heart attack this spring. At the same time he also developed prostate gland trouble. He was in the hospital for 7 weeks and had no hospitalization insurance because payments of insurance premiums had to be dropped as they were too high for the small family income. His hospital costs alone were $1,600, and he died on October 25, 1963. His widow, my sister, will now have to sell their small home to pay for the total medical cost of approximately $3,000.

MARION BARTH.

Mr. BROWN. I again thank you for the opportunity to appear. Mr. KING. The committee thanks you, Mr. Brown. Are there any questions?

Mr. DEROUNIAN. Mr. Brown, would you turn to the next to the last letter by Mr. Upson, please; in looking at the last sentence, and noting it is now 7:20 p.m., Mr. Upson says, "God knows, they" meaning

Members of Congress, "get enough for the time they spend at their job." And I wonder if you agree with that statement or not?

Mr. BROWN. To be very frank with you, Mr. Congressman, I have written a letter to my own Congressman and this is my personal opinion and not as president of the State Council, and I have told him that I opposed the increase in salary for Congressmen.

Mr. DEROUNIAN. Now, Mr. Brown, do you have a budget for the National State Council for Senior Citizens?

Mr. BROWN. We don't have a budget. We have been in existence since July, and we are about living from hand to mouth.

Mr. DEROUNIAN. There are no salaries for anybody?

Mr. BROWN. No salaries.

Mr. DEROUNIAN. And no expenses?

Mr. BROWN. And darn little expenses.

Mr. DEROUNIAN. Thank you.

Mr. CURTIS. I have just one question. I want to thank you for showing the courtesy to the committee, and to give us some case histories. I can assure you I am going to follow through on each one as I have. The interesting thing, though, is that it is true these people had a hard time, but they did make ends meet, didn't they?

Mr. BROWN. Well, Mr. Congressman, I suppose that you can make ends meet, but the one case history which I read to you, I think, is of a very fortunate couple and they have gotten rid of most of their

resources.

Mr. CURTIS. Don't misunderstand me--I know there are some rough situations. All I am saying is that we can improve the situation, believe me, but the case histories you give are not cases of people who went without this great health care that is available in our society, which to me indicates a success story, even though these people had that difficult experience.

They have problems, I know, and we want to pay attention to what is the problem, but the presentation here, as I see it, is to really radically change the system, which has produced the greatest health care of any society in the world. I think we can move forward on the present base, rather than shift the base. This is my only point.

Mr. BROWN. I might say that the gentleman whose case history I read was refused help in the State of Florida.

Mr. CURTIS. You have given these histories and I appreciate it and we will follow through on it.

The CHAIRMAN. We appreciate again your coming, Mr. Brown. Mrs. Schatz is the next witness.

We appreciate having you with the committee today, and Mr. Green wanted me to tell you that he apologizes that he could not wait until you could testify, but he had an engagement that he had to keep.

STATEMENT OF DORA N. SCHATZ, PRESIDENT OF THE SENIOR CITIZENS CENTRAL ASSOCIATION OF PHILADELPHIA AND VICINITY, AND SECRETARY, THE NORTHEAST COMMUNITY GERIATRIC CLINIC, PHILADELPHIA, PA.

Mrs. SCHATZ. My name is Dora N. Schatz, Philadelphia, Pa. I am president of the Senior Citizens Central Association of Philadelphia and the vicinity. This is an independent, nonpartisan legislative ac

tion organization, representing over 8,000 older persons from Golden Age Clubs, labor unions, and the general public.

I speak, too, for "The Northeast Community Geriatric Clinic" as founder and secretary. It is the only free diagnostic clinic of its kind in the United States and is located in the Tacony Baptist Church at Disston and Hegerman Streets in Philadelphia.

I am a widow in modest circumstances and live alone, I wish to testify for myself and for those who have sent me. It is our object to concentrate on the present nursing home situation.

The King-Anderson bill, H.R. 3920, advocates skilled nursing home care and services. It is our earnest contention that passage of this bill would electrify and stimulate a new interest in and incentive for the building of more and better nursing homes throughout the country.

It is true there are excellent professional nursing homes also; but their charges are so high as to make them nonexistent so far as most of us older people are concerned. We Golden Agers spend a great deal of time together, share our joys and fears.

Only those in the autumn of life can truly appreciate the worry and feeling of apprehension associated with the fear of a future, long, and last illness and where and how it will be spent.

We visit friends and relatives in nonprofit and low-cost nursing homes and know whereof we speak. We are deeply disturbed about the deplorable conditions that exist now in the great majority of these homes:

(1) Most of the buildings used in the nursing home field are substandard and their equipment is outmoded;

(2) Many home operators are often unqualified for this special type of service;

(3) Most of the employees of these homes are underpaid and are unskilled in caring for the ill;

(4) Too often the types of services available are too limited for the widely different reasons the patients are there;

(5) There are not enough staff doctors and registered nurses to care for the patients or to supervise, or instruct the help;

(6) There are far too few homes in relation to the need, and these are painfully overcrowded;

(7) The State and city agencies, which should supervise and inspect personnel, performance, and plant conditions in general, are understaffed and too few in number. They cannot do the job that should be done;

(8) Finally, we believe that nonprofit nursing homes should be made eligible for low-interest, long-term direct loans and for FHA mortgage insurance to make it possible to serve the nursing home needs of our older people at the lower rates they so desperately need. The late poet Robert Frost expressed our feelings well in his poem "Provide, Provide" and I quote:

No memory of having starred,

Atones for later disregard,

Or keeps the end from being hard,

Better to down dignified,

With boughten friendship at your side, provide, provide!

It is only through adequate financial support that nursing homes will be able to offer adequate care. Time and time again, State, local, and private officials say, "We would like to provide decent nursing home care, but how are you going to finance it? Certainly not through private insurance."

Most policies do not even include it and those that do, provide little in the way of benefits or for a limited period of time. Last year Blue Cross and Blue Shield put on a major drive for senior citizen policyholders.

Only half of the Blue Cross plans offered included any nursing home benefits and only half of the Blue Shield plans offered such payments it was only for a limited number of days.

However, we are thankful that the Blue Cross-Blue Shield is trying to include more nursing home care, limited as it is, in most areas. We are distressed to hear from the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare that apparently the number of Blue Cross policies sold to the aged went down from an average of 35,000 per month in 1960-61 to only 16,000 per month sold last year (November 30, 1961, to December 31, 1962).

By 1965 Pennsylvania will have 1,218,000 people over age 65. The average income per person in the families where the head of the household is over age 65 is only $1,372. For the single people living alone it is only $824 a year.

Therefore, gentlemen, I hope that you will find room in your hearts and minds to help provide the financing of decent nursing home care for people in the latter years of life so that they can live out their lives in dignity and reasonable security.

In conclusion, I should like to read to you one sentence by Mr. Justice Cardozo, speaking for the U.S. Supreme Court in the case which sustained the constitutionality of the old-age insurance system:

The hope behind this statute is to save men and women from the rigors of the poorhouse as well as from the haunting fear that such a lot awaits them when journey's end is near.

This one sentence spells out the real reasons why this Nation should have old-age "unemployment" insurance and disability insurance through social security and now health insurance through social security, rather than the poorhouse of yesteryear and its modern counterpart, public welfare and the Kerr-Mills program.

Finally, I hope and trust that this committee will act soon for the sake of those of us who are already senior citizens and for the sake of the coming generations of senior citizens.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mrs. Schatz. Are there any questions? Thank you for bringing to the committee your views on this matter. Mrs. SCHATZ. May I include this clinic folder in the report? The CHAIRMAN. We will be glad to have it but tell us what it is. Mrs. SCHATZ. This is the whole story of our clinic, who we are and what we are and it was included once before and I would like to have it included again.

The CHAIRMAN. We will be glad to include the would-be objection and it will be included in the record and leave it with the reporter. (The folder referred to follows:)