Wigs, Spectacles & All

Cherub-faced Oscar Ewing, chief pitchman for Harry Truman's national health insurance plan (see MEDICINE), could not contain his enthusiasm over Britain's socialized medicine.

"It seems to me," he said in London, after a week of studying the Labor Government's plan at first hand, "that this program is working remarkably well and that it is a good thing for Britain. I can see now that most of the critics of our proposal in the United States have, whether deliberately or through ignorance, tried to mislead the American people on the facts about the British program."

Until he let himself go in London, Federal Security Administrator Ewing, like his fellow Fair Dealers, had been doing his level best not to get the Truman plan confused in the public's mind with the British plan. The Truman plan, to cost $4.5 billion a year at the start and more later, would be financed a little differently (by a direct payroll tax) and presumably be more limited in coverage. Well, would the U.S. program pass out wigs, spectacles and false teeth, just like Britain's? a reporter wanted to know.

"Yes," replied Ewing. "Wigs, spectacles and all. The cost of wigs under your British plan doesn't amount to a hill of beans."

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