Part: 12         Session: 123456789101112131415161718192021222324252627282930313233343536         Page 682683684685686687688689690691692693694695696697698699703704705706707708709710711712713714715716717 of 1143

of the United States. I went on to say that I felt that unless something were done to explain the President's program really on a large-scale to the mass of the people to get citizens' support for it, that the national health insurance feature of the program could be seriously embarrassing to the Democratic Party. The AMA was making a political issue of it and had organized and collected $25 a piece from its members over the past 12 months and collected over two and a half million dollars.

This group then agreed that they would urge the appointment of such a commission. They really began to get worried. When I returned to Washington a week later for a dinner for the Lasker Awards in Medical Journalism, we went to see Senator Bridges and Senator Chavez, who arranged for two days of hearings in the Senate for the various Institutes of Health, and we also went to see Percy Priest about the chances of getting an aid-to-medical-education bill reported in the House. Priest thought that nothing could be done unless the deans of the medical schools themselves would come down and tell the members of the committee that they really wanted the bill.

We tried to organize the deans of the medical schools into teams to support the aid-to-medical-education bill, but unfortunately some of the key deans really were intimidated by the AMA's tactics. The AMA at this time was