Adler to Address Jr. Group Brinicli
Special gift
gift activities in the
Junior Division will get under
way with a brunch, Sunday,
March 11, 10:30 a. m., at the
Lee Plaza, with Rabbi Morris
Adler slated to speak on the
special emergency needs of the
1956 Allied Jewish Campaign.
N. Brewster Broder is CO-
chairman of the Junior Divi-
sion, with direct responsibility
for the special gift phase of the
campaign organization. The fol-
lowing young adults are work-
ing with him to make the
March 11 affair a success: Je-
rome H. Altman, Irving Dub .-
rinsky, Norman Feinberg, Sally
Friedman, Hugh Greenberg,
John C. Hopp, Jr., Carolyn
Kann, Irving Keene, Philip
Kravitz, Jr. (co-chairman re-
sponsible for general solicita-
tion), Alan Luckoff, Bernard
Becomes Ass't. Prosectif or
Rosner, Walter J. Rubiner, Je-
WEST HARTFORD, Conn.,—
rome L. Schostak, Mrs. Mary (JTA) Frederick D. Neus-
Shapero, Walter Shapero, Rob- ner has been named ASSistant
ert L. Siegel, Harvey G. Snider, Prosecuting Attorney for the
Robert Sosnick and Marviri Town Court of West Hartford.
Wolf. -
William Wetsman is . chair-
6—Detroit ,Jewish News
man of the Junioi. Division.
Friday, March 2, 1956
Two Editorials on Michigan Blue Cross
Featured below are the -full texts of two editorials which appeared in The DETROIT TIMES on
February 26, 1956 and in The DETROIT FREE PRESS on February 27, 1956. Because they present the
considered editorial judgment of two of Michigan's great newspapers, we are reprinting them in full
as a public service for the information of our 3,600,000 Blue Cross members and all the people of Michigan.
From The Detroit Times, February 26
BLUE CROSS FUSS
We didn't suspect a week ago today, when we
started a series of articles on Blue Cross, that the
fuss over hospital prepayment would attar the in-
tensity it has now reached.
The amount of hullabaloo, frankly, is getting out
of hand.
Rep. Allison Green has a bill for the Legislature,
which he fondly hopes will solve everything. It won't.
Insurance Commissioner Joseph A. Navarre has
been quoted with some remarks which we suspect he
will regret when he begins to realize what he has said.
A group of unions in Detroit and Flint is proposing
to set up a rival "Blue Cross plan," which is entirely
within their rights, even though we doubt it will look
as simple to them once they have gotten into what is
a very complicated problem.
Of the three—Rep. Allison, Commissioner Navarre,
and the unions—we think the unions are behaving
most reasonably. We differ with them only in our
opinion as to whether they CAN produce what they
think they can.
But of the whole lot, we think Blue Cross and its
present managers are the most capable of providing
what we want. We think Blue Cross is getting a
vicious and needless pushing around.
In our news stories we have tried to tell what was
happening without letting our opinions sway us.
But this is the editorial page, and this is our
opinion, and we are saying what we think.
*
* *
First of all, a series of articles which began con-
currently in another Detroit paper is, for all we know
at this moment, still running. We don't have any
quarrel with the facts in it
We do believe it has placed too much emphasis-on
"over-utilization"—that is, the complaint that some
people either stay too long in the hospital, or get in
under Blue Cross when they shouldn't—when they
aren't really sick.
The Times reported that. We can take you back in
the files a couple of years and show we were the first
newspaper to report there was some of this chiseling
going on. It should be halted. We think it is being
halted. ,
But it makes a rather sensational subject to write
about—and some people talk too much about it. This
"over-utilization" while it does happen, is not occur-
ring to the extent that it makes any vast difference in
premium payments.
And that is the most important issue in this whole
problem.
Why do we think "over-utilization" is not as great
as some people•try to suggest?
on the people who are most seriously ill. Who wants
that?
*
* * *
First, because a Blue Cross study group itself was
the first to dig into the matter. No attempt to hide
anything. Just an effort to correct the situation, since
chiseling by one subscriber is paid for by all the
honest ones.
Second, Blue Cross, by subsequent and continuous
inquiry, thinks that this evil is under good control,
even though there is still an occasional violation.
Third, because Michigan isn't the only Blue Cross
plan. The Same general plan exists in all the states,
each under its own laws and its own management.
If the plan here happened to be at fault, in some
way, it is hardly possible that all the states would be
at fault in the same way.
Somewhae in the country we would find that Blue
Cross rates were markedly lower—we would find it,
that is, if Michigan's Blue Cross were letting the cus-
tomers get away with murder.
Somebody would have found a solution, and would
be bragging about it. But no, rates are pretty com-
parable anywhere you go.
Therefore, we suspect this "over-utilization" has
been publicized into a bigger fault than it really is.
We don't- think very many people get much fun out
of going to, or staying in, a hospital.
Now Rep. Green thinks he could bring about lower
rates, and thwart all the chiselers (such as there are
—most people are honest) by a law making Blue
Cross change its policy.
He would make everyone who uses Blue Cross pay
the whole cost of the first day in the hospital (the
most expensive day, because then you have all the
tests, and usually the operation if you need one) and
also pay 15 per cent of the cost after the seventh day. ,
Of course that would reduce the premium you pay
for Blue Cross—but you'd soon find it didn't save any
money. Furthermore, it would put the biggest burden
* *
Rep. Green, with the best of intentions, has over-
simplified the situation. Besides, he wants to make
this compulsory for everybody—doesn't even want to
give subscribers a choice of which way they'd rather
do it.
Commissioner Navarre, for reasons which escape
us, has indorsed Rep. Green's notion. We suspect
some politics somewhere, because we think Navarre
ought to know better.
We wonder, too, why Navarre has questioned the
sincerity of the Blue Cross in offering a so-called
"deductible" policy.
People have been able; if they chose, to buy such
a policy from Blue Cross for upwards of the last year.
Blue Cross made no secret of the fact that such a
policy was being offered. People could have it, at a
lower price, if they wanted it. They didn't want it.
To get back to the unions, now. They'd like a
policy which gives more benefits at lower cost. Who
doesn't like the idea? Who doesn't want the good
five-cent cigar back, or the $700 automobile, or the
three-cent newspaper, for that matter? We'd like them
all back.
But you can't slap economics in the face.
You can't legislate Utopia.
And so far as we are concerned, you can't say that
Blue Cross hasn't been doing a good job.
Its prices haven't gone up any faster than factory
wages. It has been so good that it now hae_3,600,000
people, or half of the whole state, using Blue Cross
and liking it.
,
*
* *
Trying to make out, all of a sudden, that something
is "wrong," or that some simple little bill in the
Legislature can turn time backward and make things
- cost less—that's nonsense.
We don't think this union group can do it, either,
but we'll concede their right to try. At least they
aren't trying to tell everybody else how to do it.
They're undertaking to show how to do it.
We think, flatly, that Blue Cross is a fine thing, and
we hope all the noise Won't fool the people and
unduly alarm them.
Blue Cross is merely a victim of our rising econ-
omy just as everybody else is.
From The Detroit Free Press, February 27
Hospital Insurance Costs
TRYING TO SPOT THE REAL VILLAIN
Old melodramas had their advantages. It was easy
to identify the villain. This is not so in the current
uproar about hospitalization insurance. Rates. have
skyrocketed. Many think Blue Cross has thrust its
hand too deeply into the pockets of its 3,600,000
Michigan subscribers. Investigations are being made,
bills are being submitted to the legislature, and the
air is blue with charges.
Much is still being learned, but we think some
observations can be made now.
The public's demand in the last decade for better
medical and hospital care has been great. Therefore,
on top of inflation must be added the cost of this
improved care. An increase in Blue Cross rates might,
then, be considered automatic.
The question is: Do the allegedly excessive rates
reflect only inflation and improved care?
Ample proof to the contrary appears in surveys of
hospital cases covered by hospitalization insurance.
The studies indicate clearly that alarming abuses
have cropped up. These take the form of unnecessary
hospitalization, prolonged stays for convenience or
comfort and excessive use of drugs and laboratory
facilities.
The problem remains the same. Whom do we hiss
and boo?
Is it hospitals for operating inefficiently? Is it
physicians who find it convenient to group patients
in h6spitals for quick and lucrative rounds of call
that require only an hour or so each morning? Is it
patients who unnecessarily demand and get from
their doctors a hospital bed and costly care? Is it
Blue Cross for permitting such known abuses to
continue?
Frankly, we suspect the answer to all such ques-
tions may be "Yes!"
At least one offered solution appears to be pre-
cipitous and short-sighted. A bill introduced in the
Michigan Legislature suggests a deductible plan simi-
lar to auto insurance. The proposal to make sub-
scribers pay for the first day of hospitalization and
15 per cent after seven days no doubt would cut rates.
It also would greatly reduce the value of the service.
It would not, we believe, strike hard enough at the
abuses.
It would, however, seem logical to offer optional
plans. Blue Cross has such a plan, in which the patient
pays the cost of the first two days and $2 a day for
.
the remainder of the hospital stay. The saving of but
16 per cent in premiums does not seem adequate,
considering that the average stay is seven days. Blue
Cross also is readying a "catastrophe" policy, but if
the saving is no greater than offered under the year-
old deductible plan it too probably will not be widely
popular.
One additional thought stands out prominently.
Physicians, through their dealings with patients and
because they control both the hospitals and the Blue
Cross organization, have failed, in our estimation, to
take an active public stand on the abuses under the
voluntary hospitalization insurance plans.
Because they are so closely involved in the abuses
and because voluntary plans were their answer in a
period when socialized medicine appeared around the
corner, they should be available to counsel the public.
The public wholeheartedly accepted the voluntary
plans and shotld have the wise advice of doctors.
Since Blue Cross is a $100,000,000-a-year busi-
ness, the entire problem should be thoroughly
examined, calmly, circumspectly and publicly.
BLUE CROSS
Michigan Hospital Service
441 EAST JEFFERSON AVE., DETROIT 26