A Look Ahead

Two-thirds of all U.S. citizens are covered by some kind of hospital or health insurance, but nearly all have to wait until they are actually ill before they can benefit. They cannot use their insurance plans for diagnosis,* so they rarely go to a doctor at the first twinge, when tracking down the trouble would do the most good. Instead, they suffer this and many later twinges rather than pay for laboratory tests.

Last week Casmir Andrews, 40, walked briskly from a red jeep station wagon into a modernistic new building in downtown Toledo: the Diagnostic Clinic of the Willys Unit. Local 12, United Auto Workers. So far as Andrews knew, there was nothing wrong with him. That was the point. He was going in for a thorough physical checkup, an exhaustive 1 1/2-hour going over by doctors, with half a dozen or more lab tests to follow. At going rates for Toledo doctors' and medical labs, this would cost anywhere from $150 to $200. Shop Steward Andrews, and the 5,000 other Willys production workers scheduled to follow him, will pay nothing directly. Their examinations will be financed, like the clinic's $500,000 physical plant, out of fringe benefits won from Willys Motors Inc. by U.A.W.

After the first, base-line physical, the workers will be entitled to any and all diagnostic services at one-fifth of cost. The other four-fifths will be paid by the clinic welfare fund. Workers' families, though not entitled to the free physical, will be eligible for the 80% discount on diagnoses. Because some charges will always be levied, doctors are satisfied that the setup will not be abused. Like the company and the union, they believe that in the long run it will save doctors' bills, discourage malingering and actually prevent sickness.

* Blue Cross (hospital) plans provide no funds for diagnosis until the subscriber has been admitted to a hospital, which means that a doctor must have certified him as already ill; Blue Shield (doctors' bills) plans vary widely, but many make partial or no payment for X rays, blood chemistry tests, pregnancy tests. Attempts to get around these provisions have resulted in abuse of the plans and forced their rates up.

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