notified, necessitating an expensive hearing before the State public welfare commission and much delay.

In the last two increases of the social security passed by Congress, the State public welfare cut the old people in their old-age assistance the amount increased by the social security, and in many cases took off an extra dollar or two. This is only one of the results of a dual agency administration.

A State public welfare system, no matter how good it may be, has no place in the heritage and dignity of the United States of America, except as a means of temporary relief. Increased social security is the only solution to this problem, with medical and hospital care.

Four-point program presented: The National Social Security Clubs of America, Inc., presents the following program that should be taken into consideration by this committee, which would provide a better standard of living for all our people at retirement or anyone who has become totally and permanently disabled. At this time I submit to you our four-point program that would require an amendment to the law to provide

1. $150 for everyone at the age of 60.

2. Unlimited age for the totally and permanently disabled.

3. Full hospital and medical care upon retirement, or when becoming totally and permanently disabled.

4. Lower the age of women from 62 to 60 without penalty. This amendment will eliminate all dual Government agencies insofar as our retiring aged, disabled, handicapped, and blind are concerned, who are now partially covered by social security. This amendment will also take care of the needy sick who are sorely in need of hospital and medical care, and cannot afford to pay the everincreasing prices. Only this past week the hospital rates per day in Portland, Oreg., went up from $17.75 to $19.75, and in Seattle, Wash., rates advanced to $23.50. I wonder how many of our retired people on the present rate of social security or old-age assistance can pay such prices for hospital care alone, to say nothing of the doctor's fee and the medicine. I am sure not many.

Congress must act: If a concerted action isn't taken by Congress, to amend the social security laws to provide medical and hospital care for the retired and disabled people, sooner or later the people will demand socialized medicine, because people as a whole are not going to continue to suffer for the lack of medical care when they know it can be made available to them.

Of course, we all know it is going to cost more to reduce the age limit on retirement, and at the same time provide medical and hospital care, but we expect that. I have yet to meet a single employee who would not be willing to pay more into the social security fund, while he is earning, if he knew he would be taken care of properly when he was ready to retire, or became totally disabled. Most employers that I have talked to are in accord with this.

While the Forand bill, H.R. 4700, does not go as far as our program in providing full coverage in hospital and health insurance in the event of serious illness or total disability, and neither does the bill call for $150 per month on retirement. Nevertheless, H.R. 4700, the Forand bill, has so many good features in line with our program that

the National Social Security Clubs of America, Inc., will support the Forand bill.

Three-man rating board needed: In conclusion I wish to make one further recommendation of great importance: that a three-man rating board be provided for in the Social Security Act in order that a fair and just decision may be rendered to the totally disabled who must appeal their cases to a referee. In a recent case an applicant was denied his disability benefits though it was necessary for him to take from 20 to 40 nitroglycerin tablets per day for his heart. He had blackouts from one to two times per day, and had been operated upon nine times. His own doctor told him he must never again attempt any kind of work whatsoever. His total income is $66.15 per month from veterans' non-service-connected total disability pension.

In order that justice can be rendered to the totally disabled who are covered by social security, is for Congress to create by law a threeman rating board, that is, a lawyer, to handle the legal aspects of the case; a doctor, to determine the severity of the disability from the diagnoses submitted by other doctors in the case; and a layman, to assist in helping to render a fair decision for the claimant.

For instance, the referee will ask the claimant who has applied for his disability benefits to look over the exhibits and if there are any he objects to, he now has that opportunity, but when the objection is made to any exhibit, the referee overrules the objection and there is no one else to appeal to, whether the objection is right or wrong. That is why a three-man rating board is most essential.

Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Dover, for bringing to us the views of the Social Security Clubs of America, Inc.

Mr. DOVER. Thank you, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Are there any questions?

If not, the committee will adjourn until 10 a.m. tomorrow. (Whereupon, at 4:15 p.m., the committee recessed to reconvene at 10 o'clock a.m., Thursday, July 16, 1959.)

HOSPITAL, NURSING HOME, AND SURGICAL
BENEFITS FOR OASI BENEFICIARIES

THURSDAY, JULY 16, 1959

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS,

Washington, D.C.

The committee met at 10 a.m., pursuant to recess, in the committee hearing room, New House Office Building, Hon. Wilbur D. Mills (chairman of the committee) presiding.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will please be in order.

Our first witness this morning is Mr. Walter P. Reuther, president of the United Automobile, Aircraft, and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, and also of the Industrial Union Department, American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations.

Mr. Reuther, we know you reside in Detroit. You are recognized, sir, for 45 minutes.

STATEMENT OF WALTER P. REUTHER, PRESIDENT, UNITED AUTOMOBILE, AIRCRAFT, AND AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENT WORKERS OF AMERICA (UAW), AND OF THE INDUSTRIAL UNION DEPARTMENT, AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR AND CONGRESS OF INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATIONS

Mr. REUTHER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I am appearing here as the president of the Industrial Union Department, which is a subdivision of the AFL-CIO, with 7 million members, and also as president of the UAW, representing 12 million workers in collective bargaining.

First, I should like to commend the committee for holding these hearings and to express my personal appreciation for the opportunity to appear.

I should like to ask that my prepared statement be entered in the record.

The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, your statement will be entered in the record.

Mr. REUTHER. Thank you.

389

(The formal statement of Mr. Reuther follows:)

STATEMENT OF WALTER P. REUTHER, PRESIDENT, UNITED AUTOMOBILE, AIRCRAFT, AND AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENT WORKERS OF AMERICA (UAW), AND OF THE INDUSTRIAL UNION DEPARTMENT, AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR AND CONGRESS OF INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATIONS

Before the Committee on Ways and Means, U.S. House of Representatives, on H.R. 4700, a bill to amend the Social Security Act and the Internal Revenue Code so as to provide insurance against the cost of hospital, nursing home, and surgical service for persons eligible for old-age and survivors insurance benefits, July 16, 1959

My name is Walter P. Reuther. I am appearing here as president of the UAW and as president of the Industrial Union Department of the AFL-CIO. I was very happy to hear of the decision of your committee to hold hearings this week on Representative Forand's bill to provide hospital, nursing home, and surgical benefits to the beneficiaries of our old-age and survivors insurance program.

I would like to state, first, in rather broad terms what I believe is or should be our approach to the problem this bill concerns itself with and what should be the basis of any action we take as free men in the whole wide area of human relations in a free society.

I believe the majority of Americans have learned in the last three or four decades that no man is an island unto himself. Many people believed this to be true a lot longer ago than that. The poet from whom I borrowed those words uttered them three centuries ago. But two world wars and the threat of a third and the agonies and indiscriminatory suffering caused by the great depression of the thirties have driven home to most of us, despite the minority of powerful and vocal dissenters, the fact that freedom and peace and human welfare and a decent standard of living are indivisible. If some of us neglect, discriminate against, persecute, or exploit other groups among us, we do so at the peril of the privileges, the freedoms, and the prosperity we cherish for ourselves.

When we propose, therefore, legislation that will provide certain needed benefits for some section or sections of our population which they cannot possibly provide for themselves, our proposals rest on a basis, not of charity, but of responsibility, of justice, and of enlightened self-interest.

There is a special consideration we should keep in mind when we discuss the needs of older people in our national community. This is a matter which has puzzled and saddened me and my friends and associates, as well as many other Americans and, I am sure, members of this committee. I would like to put it before you, for your ernest and thoughtful concern, in the form in which it appears to me.

In many countries, among many cultures, in numerous ethnic or nationality groups, now or in the past, older people are regarded with respect and even reverence by their juniors. Among some so-called savage groups, the elders of the tribe are the rulers, the makers and interpreters of the law, the custodians of culture and history, the source and inspiration of wisdom. Regardless of the degree to which older people may or may not wield authority by virtue of their years, the common factor in such cultures is that the elders live out the last years of their lives on a respected and dignified social level.

Here in the United States, of course, there are a comparative few older people whom we honor and respect, sometimes grudgingly or indulgently, sometimes without reservation, because by extraordinary intelligence or luck or genius or cunning or talent or unscrupulousness or industriousness they have acquired material wealth or social status or public position as they have acquired years. But why is it that in the United States, and in some other contemporary countries, in the 20th century, most older people are looked upon by society generally as unwelcome and irksome burdens, whose unmet needs are regarded more as annoyances than responsibilities, as creatures who should be pushed aside and kept apart from the mainstream of life because they are considered to be drones, no longer useful to their younger fellow men.

Few Americans who live to retirement age have lived useless lives. On the contrary, most of them have made a contribution, however, large or small, within the limits of the capacity with which they were endowed, to the society in which their lives are lived. Nor has their capacity to enrich the community necessarily