Conversation 642-037

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Thank you.

I just wish you a happy new year.

And we...

I know some of our usual critics are squealing about that I had to bomb new targets in our Vietnam, but you know, that'll be all in the end, because you know what I mean?

Well, the point is, if we did it so that we can continue our withdrawal, we're not gonna let those clowns get down there and kill a few Americans.

Well, good to talk to you, George.

Fine.

You did a terrific job.

Well, I'll remember that.

I called George also.

Fine.

Yeah, yeah.

Didn't worry about this at all.

At all.

Yeah.

I'll say this.

You can have a conference call, get involved, and whine with her on the other side.

Can you do that?

Hello?

Well, I hear you got a call, sir.

Harry Hopkins was here.

He, uh, charged the PWA, or WPA, I don't know what it was, but one of those two.

He got a wire, uh, diverted from the PWA director to California, uh, asking for approval of the requisition for 5,000 shovels.

And Hopkins ripped off the wire back to him and said, Tom, don't lean on each other.

So that's the last of the area.

That's all staff has.

Okay.

I think we better get out of the way.

I didn't trust that somebody was going to judge me into telling me that I had a point and a half or a seven or whatever they just figured.

Thank you.

It's a privilege to be here when you sign up against your bill.

Let's see, shall we stand together?

Come on.

Let's see.

It's fantastic, right?

It's been very long.

Oh, you're a little later.

I guess we'll even brush them off, you know.

They tend to hide sometimes.

Get them out of here.

Basically, some sense of national health insurance is very closely parallel to your proposal.

There are some minor variations, but the fundamental things that we think are important are the same things that Jim and Mr. Coles tell us you think are important.

Right, right.

Well, let me tell you that...

I'm aware of those talks that you've had.

I appreciate the support.

We will have, you know, quite a fight in this next session, being the election and the rest.

But you've got the insurers that are supporting the, well, it's called the Kennedy bill, but there are a lot of others that are supporting it.

You just socialize with that as a compulsory health insurance.

I am totally against it.

I always have been.

And I will try desperately to keep it from sinking under the door under another name.

I think the ability of Richardson and Hitchcock to come up very cleverly

with a plan that builds on what is good in the present health care system.

It doesn't throw it out the window, but it proves it.

And that's what we're going to go for.

And because it basically is a realm especially possible, it means that there is some chance to be true.

But my general view of this field

It's color to the fact that I know what has happened in the country and the country who thought the other way.

And the others too.

When anybody who hasn't been buying is sick, what is the world?

Real sick.

Where does he go?

He comes home and says, why?

not because we're rich and all the rest, they're smart people every place, it's because we have the best at the top that it will get to where we're at now.

It isn't available to as many as it should be in some areas.

It costs too much for others.

We need the insurance coverage and all the rest.

that what these clowns are really doing, who you talk so loosely about setting up a whole new system, one in which rather than working through the profession and through the administrators and the rest, they say,

is that you're going to destroy the quality of medical care in order to get quality.

That we must not do.

That's my philosophy, and I think it's the philosophy of your people.

Yes.

Well, I think the Kennedy bill would destroy the quality, because it would reduce everything that we want.

But, yeah.

We don't feel the country could afford it with the Kennedy approach.

So, you know, you can answer, you can hit back, but it's a terrible cost.

A lot of people would be appealed to for that.

But to me, the more potent argument is the latter.

I'll even assume you could.

What we're interested in is the quality of medical care.

And we're not about to go that way.

Now, the difficulty, of course, is past.

I've been around this track, of course, and I do have many, many years.

Is it over a period of time?

We've had this situation where the

The profession, speaking of medical profession, BMA, and to an extent, hospital administrators and rest, have taken a rigid hard line attitude toward NEAT.

As a result, they set themselves out to be knocked over.

Now, there are exceptions.

You fellas are all on the underbreed, I can see.

And you can't eat something without it.

Now, that doesn't mean that in order to combat some abysmal idea, you have to get a little credit.

I'm not speaking to that.

But I do say that under these circumstances,

We think there needs to be some change in the delivery system if we're going to do it on a better control and cost basis.

And we're making suggestions of those changes to be assured that the resources are used in the best manner and available to everyone.

We don't think we can just pump more money into the system and solve the problems.

We have to take and reorganize the method of delivery.

I have been watching these cost of living indicators for the last three years in particular.

I watched them.

I was supposed to be going to talk about this.

And you know what goes up.

Yes, sir.

And you know what goes up here, sir.

Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh.

Not your fault.

I mean, costs are up.

The equipment is bad.

I was just standing at the summit.

The one thing that has not taken into account in all these indicators of prices going up is that sometimes better service is coming in.

You're getting all that sort of thing.

There are a lot of technical things, which you know, we've never even thought of when you've had service before.

But in any event, the costs go up.

That's why I was pleased that you were able to hold as well as you did.

That was an amazing report.

You're fighting an almost impossible.

We think the freeze was good for hospitals.

What's going to happen now?

Well, we haven't hit 90.

So we'll hold the line at the 5.5.

We think the rest of the people live within phase two.

We think we can live within phase two as it's identified for hospitals.

And we're going to make every effort to live within it.

It's an experiment, yes.

We can't be sure that we can, that we're going to find it.

I thought I'd keep it taken that it's in toxic factors.

If he is not around,

You, the two of you, you get over themselves and tell them, oh, my God, he's locked that council.

We do everything we can to hold it.

The difficulty is, of course, the pay board is independent.

So is this transformation of the pay board to a certain extent.

They're good people.

And these pressures are in ours.

But we have, but in this area, we've got to hold them on.

Let me ask you, though, let me get to the key.

Are they underpaid?