it most interesting. It is very current and very factual about what is happening in the aged group of 60 and above.

If our current research experience is typical, and we believe it is, the health problem of some 16 million 65 and over in this country is a financial one of tremendous proportion, particularly when 3 out of 5 have gross incomes of less than $1,000 annually.

During 1958 the GHA here in Washington had 22,879 participants and 6 percent were 60 years or over. That aged group had 1,029 days of hospital care comprising 73 individual episodes with an average length of stay of 14.1 and an average cost per episode of $534.

This compares with all ages combined in our GHA picture where the length of stay was 6.6 days, and average cost per episode was $249. In other words, for the older age group the average hospital episode extended for a period more than twice as long as to all ages combined and more than twice the cost.

The rest of this statement I believe is going to be in the record, so there is no need in reading any of it but let me make another point in connection with the table.

You notice 4.2 percent of total hospital episodes or all ages combined was in the 60 year and over age group. This percentage will tend to rise, we believe. Our experience has been over the past 3 years that the 60 year group has been increasing in our plan at the rate of 25 percent annually. We of course are a small plan with reference to grand totals but it does show the aging of our participants.

We have no specific proposal offered to meet the problem of health of these older people at this point. The task itself is very difficult. There have been several approaches suggested financing the medical care for the older citizen. But the cost of care as we all know is just but one facet.

It would seem if the years are to be added to life we should try to add good living to those extra years. Medicine is still lacking in total knowledge of disease of the nervous system, which, like cancer, affects more people when they survive longer. And mental disease is a tremendous problem. If we could have successful research in that area we might keep people out of mental hospitals and nursing homes. A full array of preventive measures should be looked into, and so

on.

I know that these subjects haven't escaped you.

Let me close with just one point. We have a great many medical records, Senator, at the Group Health Association and I would like, on behalf of the association, to make them available for the study of this committee. The study of several thousand charts of members who have been under our care for 15 to 20 years might yield useful information in estimating quantitatively such data and increased frequency of visits to the doctor, hospitalization, disease and medication, and prolonged stay in nursing homes.

I am looking forward to some exploratory discussion with your staff.

Thank you very much, Senator.

Senator MCNAMARA. Thank you very much.

This very short table you have here is certainly dramatic. If this is an example of the charts and records that you have, your offer to allow the subcommittee access to them is most appreciated and we will be calling on you, and do appreciate your cooperation here today. Mr. WATTERS. Thank you, Senator.

Senator MCNAMARA. Thanks very much.

That concludes the hearings.

Thank you all for your patience and we are sorry we had to run so late today.

The hearing is adjourned.

(Whereupon, at 1:12 p.m., Thursday, August 6, 1959, the hearing was adjourned.)

APPENDIX

STATEMENT OF HARRY C. BATES, PRESIDENT, BRICKLAYERS, MASONS & PLASTERERS INTERNATIONAL UNION OF AMERICA

Hon. PAT MCNAMARA,

Subcommittee on Problems of the Aged and Aging,
U.S. Senate, Washington, D.O.

AUGUST 7, 1959.

DEAR SENATOR MCNAMARA: I am writing you in response to your kind invitation to me to submit a statement in connection with your current hearings on the conditions and needs of the aging and aged.

Let me state first of all that the Bricklayers, Masons & Plasterers International Union is in complete accord with the views and recommendations expressed on behalf of the AFL-CIO by Mrs. Katherine Ellickson, assistant director of the department of social security, AFL-CIO, in your hearings on the morning of August 6, 1959. A copy is attached.

In addition, let me stress that our organization is also strongly in support of the proposals backed by the AFL-CIO to make spécial provisions for housing for the elderly. The AFL-CIO and our organization recommend authorization of $200 million for low-cost loans for housing for the elderly. The exceedingly moderate housing bill, S. 57, approved by the Senate earlier in the session authorized only $50 million for this purpose. While this initial step could have established only a small pilot project in this area and would have been extremely moderate, President Eisenhower, as you know, vetoed the bill, including this provision, on the ground of its being extravagant and excessive.

Although we feel that this provision in S. 57 falls far short of the established need of the aged for housing, we believe that this authorization contained in S. 57 is the absolute minimum in this area. We therefore ask that the provision of S. 57 be incorporated in full in any housing bill to be approved by the Senate in lieu of the vetoed legislation in the Senate previously approved. A copy of the AFL-CIO Fact Sheet on the Housing Act of 1959 submitted by President Meany to the Senate Banking and Currency Committee in his testimony on July 28 is attached. Please note the reference in page 2 of the fact sheet to the provision of housing for the elderly proposed in S. 57.

Special attention should be given to the fact that this provision for housing for the elderly would enable nonprofit corporations to build housing for the elderly at rents at least $20 a month below those now available. This would be accomplished through a new program of long-term loans to such nonprofit corporations for housing for the elderly at an interest rate reflecting the cost of money to the Government. This would utilize the same interest rate formula now used for college housing loans.

The Bricklayers, Masons, and Plasterers International Union maintains within its own organization a relief plan to render assistance to old age and disability members and widows of members of our organization. Our organization also maintains a mortuary plan for the payment of mortuary benefits to the families of deceased members.

In conclusion, let me commend you and your subcommittee for your leadership in focusing attention on the urgent and increasingly intense problems and needs of the aging and aged in the United States.

With many thanks for your interest, I am

Sincerely yours,

HARRY C. BATES, President. 245

STATEMENT OF DON BLACK, CHAIRMAN, "JOBS AFTER 40" PROGRAM, FRATERNAL ORDER OF EAGLES

When the late President Franklin Delano Roosevelt presented a fountain pen to the worthy president of the Grand Aerie of Eagles in 1936, history was made. The pen was used to sign the Eagles program of social security into law. The Eagles called it a crusade for old-age pensions in 1919. The 1936 social security law was the result.

The desire to assist the senior citizens has been an Eagle long-range objective. In February of this year, Congress received a petition signed by 800,000 Eagles requesting Federal legislation to end discrimination in employment against our senior citizens. This presentation of petitions, a culmination of the jobs-after-40 campaigns, received responses from Senators Humphrey, Minnesota; Neuberger, Oregon; Mansfield, Montana; Javits, New York; and many others.

Senator Yarborough, of Texas, introduced S. 3188 amending the Federal contract law relaxing the maximum age requirements of the employed worker. The House of Representatives had similar legislation pending at the close of its session.

Senators Neuberger (Oregon), Morse (Oregon), Humphrey (Minnesota), Mansfield (Montana), Kefauver (Tennessee), Magnuson (Washington), Carroll (Colorado), Yarborough (Texas), Proxmire (Wisconsin), and Douglas (Illinois), introduced in the Senate the jobs-after-40 bill recently with specific application to Government contracts and to firms which supply the Federal Government. The designation of the new bill is S. 1172. John McFall (California), also reintroduced the jobs-after-40 bill in the House. Congressman McFall wrote to Secretary of Commerce Lewis Strauss urging special consideration be given to those over 40 years of age in hiring the estimated 200,000 workers to be required for the U.S. census taking.

Many States, among them Colorado, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island, have State laws in their legislative agendas or in their codes. Counties and municipalities have followed suit throughout the width and breadth of the United States. Wisconsin, Connecticut, and Oregon, in early summer of this year, passed Eagle-sponsored jobs-after-40 bills.

Eagle-sponsored jobs-after-40 bills are pending in the legislatures of New Jersey, Illinois, Washington, New Hampshire, Michigan, Nebraska, Alaska, and California.

The Eagles jobs-after-40 format calls for:

1. Legislation: Removing upper age limits in hiring by declaring job discrimination based on age to be an unfair employment practice.

2. Persuasion: Convincing employers to give equal consideration in hiring to qualified older workers in competition with other qualified workers.

3. Education: Securing a favorable climate of public opinion for the concept that ability to perform the duties of the job should be the deciding factor in hiring procedures.

This then is the project phase: To sell the program, nationally, the Eagles implemented the broad idea. The Eagles placed the program so that it could be made worthy of acceptance to all walks of life.

It is interesting to observe what happens when a person like your speaker takes part in this program. One of the great tests of any project is how does it stand up to discussion, debate, and execution. I have discussed this program— I have debate it in public forums and on TV panel programs. I have helped execute it on community, county, and State levels.

I would like at this time to give you the benefit of my experience in the execution of this great project, and at the same time approach with appropriate humbleness the prospect of what the future holds for all of us.

When Judge Robert Hansen, past Grand Aerie president and now chairman of the Grand Aerie program committee, assigned me to the jobs-after-40 campaign, I did not realize how great the task was to be. To begin with, as I traveled about various State, I saw the many agencies-town, village, city, county, State, and Federal-which are directly involved in the welfare and supervision of male and female employees.

I realized that to create a better climate for jobs after 40, it was not merely sufficient to pass a law. Another ordnance, another statute, is not the complete solution.

When I appeared on a television panel show, one of my worthy opponents, an educator, stated that "education" was the solution. The professor insisted: