Speech #920275555

Mr. President. this bill extends the Migrant Health Act through June 30. 1975. It provides comprehensive health care provisions. and provides as well that funding for hospital care be included in the migrant health program for the first time. Today. with the migrant health programs we have on the books. we are providing health services for fewer than 10 percent of the migrant workers and eligible seasonal farmworkers in the country. We are spending an average of about $5.10 per migrant. in spite of the fact that their health needs. as with so many of the poor and unfortunate people of this country. are among the most critical in the country. This measure steps up quite significantly the amount of resources available by providing authorizations of $60 million for fiscal year 1973. $105 million for 1974. and $120 million for 1975. That will actually double the authorization for next year over this year. but it is a needed program. and the testimony we had before our committee was that if we were to try to provide minimum standards for health care for the migrants. it would cost some $600 million. so $60 million is a bare minimum. This measure also includes a separate authorization to help defer the cost of hospital services to migrant workers. That is an extremely important provision. because we have seen time and time again. during the course of our health hearings. where hospitals today are operating on such a thin line between bankruptcy and survival that they have refused to provide migrants with health care. because they cannot afford it. This measure would provide resources for migrant hospitalization. It would authorize $20 million in fiscal year 1973. $35 million for 1974. and $40 million for 1975. Mr. President. for too long. the health needs of the approximately 1 million migrant agricultural workers in the Nation have remained unmet. Low economic and educational levels. forced mobility. and the lack of State resident status. as well as cultural and language barriers all serve to deny access to any health care service. Government reports -and private studies have convincingly documented the poor health of migrant farmworkers. For example. the infant mortality for migrants is 25percent higher than the national average. Mortality rates for tuberculosis and other infectious diseases are 21/2 times higher than the national rate. Hospitalization for accidents is 50 percent higher than the national rate. The average life expectancy for the migrant is under 60. for the average U.S. citizen. it is over 70. Witnesses before the joirit hearings held by the Senate Subcommittees on Health and Migratory Labor all concurred without exception. that there continues to be a need for a distinct. identifiable program to meet the special health needs of the migrant farmworker and his family. Although there are almost 900 counties in 46 States which have substantial numbers of migrant and seasonal farmworkers. at the current time. the Department of Health. Education. and Welfare finances projects in only 130 counties. Perhaps no single group in our Nation continues to be as exploited and unserved as the agricultural migrant worker who harvests the food we consume daily. A dozen years have passed since the television expos6 "Harvest of Shame" told the Nation. as did Steinbeck a generation earlier. of the brutal conditions endured by the Nations farmworkers. Yet we still find migrant workers with incomes that average approximately $2.100. We still find migrant workers in substandard housing. We still find migrant workers denied the protection of the law. These men and women continue to travel the stream working for subsistence wages because their own dignity and selfesteem forces them to seek work wherever it can be found rather than to resign themselves to public indigency. In reality. they are subsidizing the meals we eat. for their exploitation means lower costs to growers. savings which may or may not be translated into lower prices at the supermarket for the fruits and vegetables we buy. The Migrant Health Act Is a recognition that the Nations farmworkers represent a considerable interstate resource. Without them. there would be no peaches from Washington. no lettuce from California. no tomatoes from Ohio. no asparagus from Colorado. no citrus from Florida. and no cherries from Michigan. The three major amendments proposed within the bill are a small effort to improve the health care of these citizens.