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The Facts of Care. Some of the publicity and the political pressure have conjured up the specter of a U.S. all but ready to allow masses of its aged to die untended. There is a problem but no crisis. U.S. citizens, young and old alike, generally receive the best health care in the world. A University of Chicago team recently polled 2,700 people over 65; only 2% claimed that poverty prevented them from getting medical care. All states except ten have programs of medical relief for the aged subsidized by matching funds from Washington, and almost every large county in the land has built a hospital that accommodates the poor. County hospitals vary in quality, and state relief varies in quantity—but some of it is generous. Miami's Dade County, one of the best, spends $350,000 a year on wards in nursing homes, supplements the income of the ailing aged who require rest-home care so that each one has at least $150 a month. California provides a state base pension of $115 a month for five-year residents over 65 who have no income, $95 for those who have some income. Altogether, 21% of California's aged collect state pensions. For the aged who need help, the state pays all nonhospital medical expenses, including drugs and doctors' calls.
The county hospital in Los Angeles employs a score of doctors who spend full time visiting indigent outpatients. The Los Angeles County Medical Association regularly advertises in local newspapers that free medical care is available to anyone who 1) needs it, and 2) phones in to numbers listed in the ad. The most recent ads ran within the past month. Not one person has telephoned. Says Dr. George Griffith, geriatrics specialist and professor of medicine at the University of Southern California: "No reasonably intelligent person need go without completely competent medical care anywhere in California." Says Dr. Leona Baumgartner. New York City's commissioner of health: "No ailing aged person goes uncared for in New York City. But the care isn't always available in the form people like. Middle-income people find it difficult to accept charity."