Summit County Labor News

Meany
Rallies Labor for
"Final
Campaign" to
Pass Forand Bill

AFL-CIO President George Meany has rallied the 13.5 million members of organized labor for a "final push" on behalf of the Forand bill, calling on affiliates to "redouble all efforts" to win congressional passage this year of legislation providing health care for the aged through the social security mechanism.

Pointing to mounting public demand for prompt action on the labor-backed bill, Meany said the federation will continue to give "top priority attention" to the measure introduced by Rep. Aime J. Forand (D-R.I.).

"Through one parliamentary route or another, in the House or in the Senate," Meany asserted, "the interest in the Forand bill will ultimately lead to action by Congress this year."

Organized labor has spearheaded the drive for passage through the letter-writing campaigns, resolutions bearing thousands of signatures directed to congressmen, and the adoption by local and state legislative bodies of resolutions calling for prompt action on the bill to finance health benefits for retired workers through social security taxes.

In letters to the officers of national and international unions and state and local central bodies, the AFL-CIO president declared:

"Your efforts in support of legislation to bring security and dignity to Americans in their twilight years is in the best tradition of the labor movement's concern for the general welfare. I know you will not fail."

At the same time, he characterized as "unrealistic and unworkable" an alternative proposed by several Republican senators to provide federal-state
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Forand Bill

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subsidies to private insurance companies to help cover the costs, with retired workers paying from 50 cents to $1.3 monthly, depending on their income.

The GOP alternative was denounced as a "cruel hoax" by Representatives Emanuel Celler (D-N.Y.) and Abraham J. Multer (D-N.Y.), who assailed the plan as "a windfall to insurance companies, but a shabby subterfuge so far as meeting older people's need for medical care."

Secretary of Health, Education & Welfare Arthur S. Flemming declined to endorse the GOP senators' plan declaring only that it was "a step in the right direction" toward Administration's ideas.

In a detailed analysis of the Republican proposal, the AFL-CIO Social Security Director Nelson H. Cruikshank said there was "virtually no possibility" that each of the 50 states, "many of which are already in substantial debt and financial difficulty," could raise the $640 million of state funds required.

He also said prospects were dim that the nearly $500 million in federal appropriations would be approved by President Eisenhower this year. Cruikshank said that the bill's requirement that 50 state governments negotiate with a multitude of insurance companies "is not only formidable, it is most unlikely to be carried to a successful conclusion."

The labor-backed Forand bill was turned down two weeks ago by the House Ways & Means Committee by a 17-8 vote in what Meany called "a set-back for this crucial piece of legislation, but . . . not a fatal blow." He said the "issue will not die, because there is too much public demand for action."

Despite the rejection of the Forand bill in its original form, the committee is still considering alternative proposals.

The AFL-CIO president made it clear that labor "does not insist that every last detail of the Forand bill is perfect," adding that "there are undoubtedly acceptable alternatives to some of the details."

"The basic objective," he continued, is "a program of health benefits for our older citizens through the use of the social security mechanism."