MEDICAL AID FOR THE AGED
Old age is the harbor of all ills.
—Diogenes Laertius (3rd century A.D.)
AT a venerable 78, Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn is acutely sensitive to the afflictions of age. This year his brother Tom, 72, underwent surgery for cancer, lingered for several months, then died. Farmer Tom Rayburn had no money, no health insurance. Mister Sam picked up the bill which ran into many thousands. "I had the money and was glad to do it," says Rayburn. "But a lot of folks don't have the money and can't do it." Rayburn, who rarely recounts personal stories unless they make a political point, was circulating that one last week—along with his word that Congress had better enact some program for federal aid to the ailing aged before it goes home in July.
In the prosperous U.S. of 1960, the nation, like Mister Sam, has become increasingly aware of a general and growing problem: the number of old people in the U.S. is increasing, and fewer and fewer of them can afford the medical care they must have. Medical progress itself is largely responsible for swelling the number of U.S. oldsters over 65 from 3.1 million in 1900 to 15.5 million in 1960, and on to an estimated 24.5 million in 1980. A man or woman of 65 now can expect to live more than a dozen years; one in four will live a score or more years. As people grow older, they become more susceptible to chronic, expensive illnesses. The wonder drugs and radical surgery that add years to lives can alleviate many of the ailments of age, but not cure them.
Meanwhile savings, the time-honored bulwark against the hazards of age, have shrunk in proportion to the demands of medical care. In the years when today's oldsters worked and saved, wages were relatively low. Inflation and the high costs of modern medicine and surgery have scrambled many a nest egg. In the past decade, medical costs for the aged have about doubled. Today the average couple over 65 spends $140 a year for medical care, or $700 if hospitalization is needed. But 57% of the aged have means of less than $1.000 a year, counting social security benefits (see diagram), and most of them have banked less than $200 to meet a medical emergency. Says Dr. Sam Gertman, director of the University of Miami's geriatrics division: "An aged person usually can pay for his first illness out of his savings. On the second illness, he mortgages his home. After the third, he goes on the county.
Bread & Butter Issue. With all their problems oldsters can vote (and now make up 20% of the electorate). So can the increasing numbers of budget-pressed young adults who, busy raising large families, feel the extra burden of carrying the heavy medical expenses of elderly parents and relatives. Result: the age-old problem of old age has become a red-hot 1960 election issue.