Prout Defends Medicare, Suggests Tax-Rebate Bill

Curtis Prout, associate director of the University Health Services, has urged that the medical profession and the Congress "work in an unemotional way to find a substitute for the defeated King-Anderson bill."

He told the Summer News yesterday that "some program of medical care for the aged must be started" and suggested the possibility of offering a tax rebate to make people buy private health insurance.

"Although the King-Anderson bill was not ideal," Prout said, "it was the best solution offered to this serious problem." He stated that the bill would not have existed at all if "the medical profession had made even rudimentary steps towards lowering the tremendous cost of medical care for older people."

"If even local communities had attempted to find a workable plan, King-Anderson would not have been necessary," Prout claimed. "There must be a willingness to do something besides say 'no'. Opponents of the bill maintain that everyone should provide against his own illness and old age. Unfortunately, it is human nature for people to ignore that illness and old age are certainties."

URGES CONCESSIONS

"I do not believe the King-Anderson bill is an entering wedge to socialized medicine," Prout said in defense of the bill. "But even if socialized medicine should result, such a step would be the will of the American people."

"The entire case has been obscured by name-calling," Prout said, "and both sides are losing sight of its merits." He urged the doctors to "make generous concessions to the government" in any bargaining session.

The opponents of the bill act as if present means for providing medical care for the aged are perfect, he said; but "obviously the American public does not think so."

Earlier this year, Prout was one of more than 100 doctors connected with the Harvard Medical School to sign a petition in support of King-Anderson.

Prout noted that many of the doctors who signed the petition teach only part time and have their own private practices. "Our beliefs do not represent an ivory-tower approach," he said. Prout himself was in private practice for 15 years before joining the Health Services last Fall.

A particular weakness of King-Anderson, Prout observed, is that it does not provide medical care for those not covered by Social Security. He predicted, however, that this inequity can be corrected.