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of America, University of Southwestern Louisiana fraternal organizations, city government, and others.

We are baby-sitting with 2-to-5-year old children of working mothers, it is true. But we are also making good citizens for the future.

In the 22 years we have developed the mechanism for our society to provide the first class kind of care our society needs for its children. Private and tax dollars have been used to help us in this very real need-a need which is truly universal-to pick up the child and lift it into a gainful and law abiding niche.

This law of Senator Long's, Federal Child Care Corporation, is needed for it would provide money to work with the child while very young. The earlier the better for he is very impressionable and can be helped far easier and cheaper. The very fact that the child is removed from the home for the day is often its very salvation. Whatever the home situation-the alcoholic, neurotic, unwed mother, or a happy one-the child will go further faster.

With licensing only being given to the care centers that meet standards set for adequate space and staffs, then the child will bloom. Health requirements go hand in hand with the first two. We have found that once a child is enrolled into care centers, it is very easy to move rapidly into improving his health. Through the University of Southwestern Louisiana Speech and Hearing Clinic, through special education, the guidance center and the youths of the medical profession, we surmount our obstacles.

The unlicensed facility is all too often the money machine for its operator. These must be outlawed quickly for most often they are the beginning of a one way road of indifferent care. This type of road often has a policeman at its end. The child care facility needed to provide for this nation's children are great indeed. The very working capital that would be provided through this bill would make it feasible for most communities to help themselves. Let me not fool you for all but our last four years we were not the most desirable of child care centers. The Welfare would speak of any operation such as ours as being near substandard. We did provide the mother image, care, hot meals and an ideal situation away from home for the child. This in a frame house of re-claimed and gift furnishings.

Two nurseries were operated by us with a pot and a pan each, left over or even broken toys, cast off dress-up clothes, and with an underpaid but willing staff. Meetings of the board used to be about our need of soap, food, clorox, and toilet paper. Do you know what it means to be down to your last roll with 60 kids who are biologically functioning well?

A bill of this type would make it possible for a group, a corporation or an individual to put together a human need with care and education. The money would be available for the child care center that could meet the license requirement— not once but daily. This would jump a generation and meet head on the long problem which is national in scope. The cost of care at this age is nothing in comparison to penal care of one at a later age.

This summer we entered the day care field in conjunction with the Win Program, with an average of 40 boys for 12 weeks. I obtained 20 acres on a 20 year lease from Texaco with an option for 20 more years. With a university clinic teacher and an assistant principal, both have a master's degree, and two college boys, we were staffed. Two port-o-lets took care of our sewer system. 136 Army Reservists spent the day clearing 6 acres with a medium-sized bulldozer that they paid for, which worked a day and a half. At a later date, I entered into a working agreement whereby a bulldozer and grader worked one weekend, labor was the only cost on this Parish-owned equipment.

Last summer I asked for and was given a 1915 Ft. Worth and Denver caboose 40 feet in length and red. With this converted into a kitchen, we raised money by going to shows and fairs. This was used by us along with a lean-to for our camp. Imagine what a bill could have provided for us.

Our present day care center is due to three local banks joining us to provide a facility to meet the needs of the individuals on the local level. It is due to our being able to expand that we could meet our financial obligations in this center. We provide day care for 94 2-5 year old children from 7:00-4:00, active probing play, morning snack, meal, rest, afternoon snack, $10 weekly.

This summer our day center boys 8-16 were packed up at 7:15 and bussed 8 miles to play-morning snack, luncheon, rest for one hour, afternoon snack, and left for home at 3:30. We felt if boys worked in and about the camp one hour a day, they would not only improve it and build it but develop an identification with it. This was an immediate success. $17 weekly for care. The end results for our community are felt with many pluses. While these boys were growing their

mothers were learning more jobs to increase the family income. There were five that through their schools will be taken to the guidance center for evaluations for they are emotionally disturbed. In this manner we utilize both private and governmental agencies to help the child in our care.

Think what a bill like this would do. We have the organization and capability of meeting a child's needs in day care in a responsible manner. There is an abundance of children. Put these together and we could have a pilot program. Our board has been caring for the last three years to meet more of the needs of our community. We find the need and then study it and then act upon it. At present there is one camp set up for 2 weeks for retardates in Louisiana. We are now doing a study on a pilot program within the frame work provided for us by Dr Faulk, head of Special Education for USL. Here again, we will get the necessary tools and put them to work.

With the help of a bill like Federal Child Care Corporation contracted relationship could be entered into with a non-profit corporation such as ours on behalf of children. There is no reason to water down the school systems in any area to the level of the mass. Lift the vast mass and we lift all. This is our country and we have it in our means to make it great. This Federal Child Care Corporation bill is a great step in this direction. Let's inspire our youth and our nation.

The CHAIRMAN. Tomorrow we will have the Honorable Charles Goodell, the Honorable J. J. Pickle, and if he can make it, we will have the Honorable Marvin Mandel, who ran up a very impressive total in the Maryland primary on yesterday, and the Honorable Russell Arrington of Illinois, as well as the list of other witnesses that I will make available to the press.

The committee will now stand in recess until 10 o'clock tomorrow. (Thereupon, at 12:55 p.m. the hearing recessed, to reconvene tomorrow, Thursday, September 17, 1970, at 10 a.m.)

THE SOCIAL SECURITY AMENDMENT OF 1970

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1970

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON FINANCE, Washington, D.C.

The committee met, pursuant to recess, at 10 a.m., in room 2221, New Senate Office Building, Senator Russell B. Long (chairman) presiding.

Present: Senators Long, Anderson, Talmadge, Byrd, Jr., of Virginia, Williams of Delaware, Bennett, Miller, and Jordan of Idaho.

The CHAIRMAN. We will commence these hearings this morning with the Honorable J. J. Pickle, Representative of the great State of Texas, and for a great congressional district. Representative Pickle STATEMENT OF HON. J. J. PICKLE, U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM THE 10TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT OF TEXAS

Mr. PICKLE. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. I appreciate the chance to testify, and I want to thank you and Senator Anderson for the privilege.

Mr. Chairman, I am testifying here today because

The CHAIRMAN. Might I ask you before you get started, Congressman Pickle, is my recollection correct that your district is the one in which our former President resides?

Mr. PICKLE. Yes, Senator. This is the 10th District of Texas, and when our beloved President was here I was referred to quite often as the President's Congressman. Of course, I always twisted it the other way and said he was my constituent, and he is my constituent now and I am very proud of it.

The CHAIRMAN. I want you to know that probably no one is more responsible for more amendments to the Social Security Act than your constituent, and it would have great weight with this committee, particularly on this side of the aisle, if you could assure us that what you are saying here this morning has the approval of your outstanding constituent.

Mr. PICKLE. Well, I must say that this has not been brought directly to his attention, but it will be, and it would be worth submitting. The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

Mr. PICKLE. Thank you, Senator.

Mr. Chairman, I am testifying here today because of deep concern over how section 225 of H.R. 17550 is going to affect the welfare programs of the States, the nursing home industry, and in particular the poverty-stricken patient who needs extended skilled nursing home, tubercular, or mental treatment. Section 225 seems to be at cross pur

poses with the intent of the family assistance plan that this committee also has been holding hearings on. Here we are rewriting the welfare laws so that more of our citizens can enjoy the "good life," and at the same time under section 225 discriminating against a group that most certainly should receive assistance, the ill and the aged.

Section 225 of H.R. 17550 provides under the medicaid program that: (1) The Federal percentage after the first 90 days of care in a year in a skilled nursing home would be reduced by one-third; (2) the Federal percentage after the first 60 days of care in a general or TB hospital would be reduced by one-third; (3) the Federal matching funds for care in a mental hospital after 90 days of care would be reduced by one-third and no Federal matching would be available after an additional 275 days of such care during an individual's lifetime. To me, this seems an especially harsh treatment to mental patients who often need a lifetime of care.

Supporters of this section 225 in the House contended that the cut will save money for the States, as well as the Federal Government, by causing patients to be shifted to less expensive intermediate care facilities. However, attached is a letter from the Texas State Department of Public Welfare estimating that section 225 will cost Texas $68,020,940 annually. This estimate is based upon the assumption that the unemployed parent program of H.R. 16311 is enacted and these people become eligible for medicaid. Even if we disregard the effect of H.R. 16311, the Texas Welfare Department still estimates that section 225 will cost Texas $36,925,322 each year. I don't have figures to show how much this section 225 is going to cost other States, but from talking to some of my colleagues, I understand that many States are going to be in the same financial boat as Texas. Not only are we talking about a lot of money, but Texas will not have the time to raise the required funds before this bill will go into effect. January 1. 1971. I cannot describe the financial condition of other State welfare boards, but the Texas budget is already operating in the red, some $26 million, and the board is having an extremely difficult time meeting the ever-increasing welfare rolls and the shift of many costs from the Federal to the State governments. Moreover, the effects this cut in funds would have on the nursing home industry are as yet largely unknown, but certainly adverse. Most important of all is the effect this section will have on those in need of skilled nursing, mental and tubercular care. The chief flaw of this section, I believe, is that it picks an arbitrary number of days after which a person supposedly no longer needs skilled nursing care or other types of treatment covered in section 225. Although it may be true that in some instances patients have been kept in skilled nursing homes when this special care was no longer necessary, and I think we will all admit that probably has ocurred, setting an arbitrary period of 90 days after which skilled care is not needed is not the answer to the problem. I am afraid that section 225 may cause a serious decline in skilled nursing homes.

Also, I have been told in a recent letter from Mr. Herbert Wilson, deputy commissioner of the Texas Welfare Department, that the department does not believe that at this time there are sufficient intermediate care facilities in Texas to take care of the shift in patients from skilled care to intermediate care facilities required under section

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