President. I am indeed gratified to support the passage of this bill to extend and improve health services for domestic migratory farmworkers. which I introduced earlier this year. The need for increased funds for migrant health services is graphically illustrated by comparing statistics that reveal the per capita expenditures of $12 for health care for migrants. compared with the per capita expenditures of well over $200 for health care for the Nation as a whole. Migrants have been shown to have an incidence of tuberculosis 17 times greater. and infestations with worms 18 times greater. than is seen among patients in private physicians offices. Notwithstanding this great need. Federal funds for the years 1967 through 1969 for migrant health services totaled less than $25 million for all 3 years. My bill. S. 2660. authorizes Federal funding for the years 1971 through 1973. which total $75 million or more than triple the funds that were appropriated for 1967 through 1969. The need is greatwe must try to meet it. The bill also strengthens congressional support for the involvement of migrants in the development and implementation of health care programs for their benefit. The Secretary must be satisfied by the project applicant that persons broadly representative of all elements of the population to be served will be given an opportunity to participate in the development and implementation of programs to improve migrant health services. Thus. the migrants themselves must be involved in the health projects. The Committee on Labor and Public Welfare agreed unanimously that the migrant health program should be "a permanently and separately identifiable program." The action taken by the Public Health Service to destroy the separate identity and operation of the migrant health program must be reversed. The staff should be reinstituted as a core unit. We are on the road to overcoming generations of neglect.
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Migrants migrants migrant