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It was just limited to one Senator and one Representative.

I don't know why; maybe it had something to do with politics.

In the early '40s there was a great deal of discussion about national health insurance. The major labor organizations were strongly in favor of it and had not gotten the idea of using health insurance as a fringe benefit to deal with. As they hadn't got that idea, they were strongly in favor of legislation. As time went on they got the idea that they could be part of the voluntary plans--and they became part of the voluntary plans, many of them--and it took the pressure off of their urging of national health insurance; although they were for it, they didn't push for it in the same way that they pushed their negotiations for private fringe benefits.

Wasn't John L. Lewis one of the leaders. . .

He ran a medical care program himself, within his own industry for the miners. His people had sort of a built-in insurance business.

However, I felt that in order to get action it would be necessary to have a group of citizens support the idea of federal health insurance. Federal health insurance was to operate through payroll tax deductions just as social security does but would be administered on a local level and would provide free