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Mary LaskerMary Lasker
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Part:         Session:         Page of 1143

the ads for this message, that we would form a small committee, called the Committee for the Nation's Health, in order to support the points in the President's health message.

The points were largely the need for health insurance, need for more hospital beds, need for more medical research, need for more training of people, nurses and doctors.

Q:

And who was to head this Committee for the Nation's Health, and what kind of a staff did they have?

Lasker:

Dr. Michael Davis was the paid executive of it, and there were one or two other people on the staff; it was very small.

Q:

Did you personally finance that?

Lasker:

I financed most of it, yes. We did get some support from the outside, but, I think, we provided the major support for it. Some of the labor groups have helped.

The Committee was unable to get any place because in '48, when Truman was reelected on his own, the AMA took his views seriously and they taxed their members $25 each and had a fund of about two-and-a-half million dollars, which they used to deride, ridicule and propagandize against national health insurance and tell about what horrors had been committed under the British Health Insurance Plan.





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