Ohio Among 2,596 over-65 patients in 60 hospitals in the state, 83 per cent had health insurance or other resources to pay their bills. patients in 44 Oklahoma hospitals had health insurance or other private means to pay the costs; the other 39 per cent were receiving help through Kerr-Mills. Texas - In 480 hospitals, 71 per cent of 5,701 aged patients had health insurance coverage. West Virginia - At Staats Hospital in Charleston, only 1.5 per cent of 296 aged treated during a one-year survey period failed to pay their bills. Arizona A study of 1,960 patients over 65 at Tucson Medical Center showed that less than 1 per cent of their bills were unpaid. Vermont - More than 80 per cent of the aged in a 1961 survey by the Vermont State Medical Society's Committee on Aging reported they could pay medical bills with insurance, current income or savings. Studies by the St. Louis, Cleveland, Buffalo Conference of Catholic Charities in three lower-middleincome parishes in these three cities showed that between 80 per cent and 90 per cent of the aged had hospital insurance, savings or potential help from children in case of illness. Arkansas - A study of 720 patients over 65 admitted to Warner Brown Hospital in Union County during 1960 showed that only 6.6 per cent had not paid their bill in full by May, 1961, and that less than 1 per cent had paid nothing on their bill. Seventy-one per cent paid their bills from private sources, including insurance, and almost 29 per cent from government programs. The average bill was $212, and of the 720 patients, only 25 (about 3.5 per cent) had a bill of $700 or more. Of these, only two were not paid in full by May, 1961. Pennsylvania - Seven Allegheny County hospitals reported admission of 15,846 patients over 65 during 1962. More than 97 per cent paid their bills, about 77 per cent from private sources, including insurance, and approximately 21 per cent were beneficiaries of the Kerr-Mills program. Only 2.4 per cent of the bills were unpaid at the time of the survey. We submit, Mr. Chairman, that the evidence refutes the assumptions on which King-Anderson arguments are based -that virtually everyone becomes ill and destitute at exactly the instant he becomes 65 years of age. SECTION III KERR-MILLS When this Committee held hearings in 1961 on legislation that would have provided hospitalization for the aged under social security, the Kerr-Mills law was only a few months old. It was too soon to make a reasonable evaluation of its effectiveness on the basis of experience. It was too early to cite the record in answer to advocates of the social security approach who continued to insist that only a sweeping federal control program would meet the health needs of older persons. - Today the situation has changed. There is a record on which to base a valid judgment of whether Kerr-Mills can fulfill its purpose the assurance of medical care for the needy and near-needy aged. It is a record of progress and achievement. And this record has been made despite consistent attempts by King-Anderson supporters to downgrade the KerrMills law in the eyes of the public. The Kerr-Mills program has never been liked and probably never will be by those who want the federal government to assume complete charge of all medical care. AMA Support The American Medical Association, along with state and county medical societies, has supported the Kerr-Mills program from the outset, testifying for it when the legislation was being considered by Congress and working for its implementation by the states following its enactment in 1960 into a law with two purposes: 1 - Improvement of existing state health care programs for the needy elderly on public assistance, and establishment of such programs in states that did not have them then, the medical part of the Old Age Assistance Program (OAA), and 2 - Establishment of new health programs for the near-needy aged who are not on public assistance and are ordinarily self-supporting but who cannot meet the costs of a serious or prolonged illness Medical Assistance for the Aged (MAA). If one considers the wide scope of this law, its implementation in the three years since it was enacted is truly remarkable. And the progress in its implementation has at times been made in the face of concerted opposition at the national and state level. Critics proclaimed it a failure before most state legislatures even had an opportunity to act on it. Opponents emphasized the usual initial weaknesses inherent in a new program and ignored its successes. State legislators were told that if they would wait, Washington would take care of the matter by getting through Congress a social security medicare bill. Implementation Progress Despite such formidable opposition, 38 states and four other jurisdictions have put Kerr-Mills MAA programs in operation or enacted authorization legislation. In operation are programs in: Alabama, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, Wyoming, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and the District of Columbia. Five states - Kansas, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Virginia and Nebraska have enacted authorizing legislation with Nebraska's program to begin November, 1963, the Kansas and Virginia programs to start January 1, 1964, and the Minnesota and Wisconsin programs on July 1, 1964. MAA programs have also been authorized in New Mexico, Georgia, Iowa, and South Dakota. |