REAL WORLD EXPERIENCE WITH A STATE RUN HEALTH CARE SYSTEM

Real World Experience of State Run Health Care

My brother and I ran a manufacturing business here in Memphis for over 40 years. We employed over 50 people including welders, metal workers, press brake operators, machinists, electricians and engineers. We provided competitive wages and benefits including health care insurance and profit sharing.

Over the years, until we sold the business in 1993, the laws concerning health care changed and we had to change to remain competitive with firms in other states and around the world. Our health insurance cost was a major cost factor but we managed to survive with changes in our program.

I was in charge of hiring employees both for the fabrication end of the business and the engineering department. Engineering, testing and innovation were major factors in our success. During that time I hired a number of great employees who helped us grow into the computer age of modern manufacturing. One employee comes to mind because of his interesting background and experiences.

His name is Roman Mitelman. He was born in the former Soviet Union and is of the Jewish heritage. He was trained as an engineer in Russia and he is an intelligent and thoughtful person and was an excellent employee. He was also a trained woodworker and model maker and crafted a working small scale model of one of our fire door systems which we used in sales presentations.

Recently Roman called me and asked me about my thoughts concerning the most important national issue today, the reform of health care. I told him that I was against a government run plan but that there were changes that needed to be made in the current system. Tort reform and regional or national health insurance competition in my opinion were two of the most important. Also more oversight of medicare claims to prevent fraud is a major factor.

Roman and I discussed the various factors and then he told me about some of his experiences in Russia that I think are important for native born Americans to hear. It is a fascinating story.

Roman was born in 1935 in Minsk in Belorussia. His father was a woodworker, very smart, but had no formal university education. He joined the Communist party in 1927 when living in Georgia. He was young and idealistic but over time he came to realize what a fraud the Communist system was and he became privately very anticommunist. Naturally it was dangerous to publically express such an opinion. He and his wife and Roman were in Minsk when the Germans invaded. The family retreated to the southeast in advance of the German army, getting out of Minsk on the last train to leave that doomed city. Roman's father was an officer in the Red Army and was wounded three times in combat in defense of Moscow. Because of his multiple wounds, his father was put in charge of all cultural and entertainment programs in a major hospital near Moscow. When the hospital was moved west to within 15 miles of the front, Roman was put in the orphanage because there was no one to take care of him as his Mother was ill. It was not a pleasant experience since he was Jewish. He was taunted by the other boys and life was very hard for him.

After the war, Roman and his wife worked as engineers. Whenever they or their two children needed medical services, they would have to go to the local center and take a number and wait for hours in an overcrowded hallway until their number came up. Then you would be seen and the medical attention and service was basically good but minimal. Many doctors were well trained and mostly dedicated but poorly paid. You had no rights of protest and the medicine and equipment were inferior. Of course everyone in Russia knew that the party members, politicians and important business people had access to special hospitals, not open to people like Roman and his family. These special facilities had the latest western equipment and medicines which were not available to the general public.

Life in Russia during this time was very hard for Roman and his family. He wanted to leave but it was very difficult and dangerous to apply for an exit visa. During this time he was approached by members of the KGB and questioned and Roman felt that he was pressured to report on other Jews, friends and past contacts. He never knew what would happen to him if he failed to cooperate but finally he strongly refused to cooperate with them. He had put his family's name on the list to leave Russia but his place in the list was near the end and the pace of approval was very slow. But something happened in 1978 when American senators Jacob Javitts, Scopp Jackson and Abraham Ribicoff came to Minsk. For political reasons, the Russians allowed Roman and his family and many others to leave. The trip was by train through Poland, Czechoslovakia and finally into Austria. His description to me of the passage through the last barrier of seven fences into Austria was very moving.

With the help of organizations the family came to Detroit and eventually to Memphis where Roman went to work for a company previously owned by Walker Wellford Sr. Roman was experienced in wood kiln engineering and woodworking. His wife found a job also and now they are both retired. The Mitelman's two children have a very interesting story also. Olga is 39 and is currently working for Merck. She went to Williams College, the University of Pennsylvania Medical School and Wharton Business School. She is a medical doctor and also has a BA in business administration. Anna is 34 and went to Wesley College and MIT business school. She has a master's degree and currently works for an investment firm. Both are grateful for the opportunities they had available in the free USA society and feel that the proposed single payer government run health care plan that the current administration wants to impose would be a mistake and the first step back towards the Russian style imposed health care system, that is one system for the masses and another for the political and business elite

Despite what politicians say, a two tier system is what is being proposed. The state run single payer system will be for us and the upper tier system will be for the politicians, bureaucrats and their political friends. If a government run single payer system is ever imposed on this country, it is hoped that it will never become the two tiered Soviet system, but it will certainly move it in that direction.

Roman pointed out to me that today, in Russia, they have two systems. The first is a private system and is a pay for service system by those who can afford to pay. The doctors basically extort money from people who need and can afford their services. The second system is for those who cannot afford to pay and it looks much like the system that Roman had access to when he was in the Soviet Union only is worse now than it was then. His warning is to Americans, do not go there with the government proposed single payer system.