I used the one in Norfolk quite a bit, service was quite alright. In the mid 70’s, a tug fire while loading fuel badly burned a few crew members. The cook especially. He was in great pain for years and for unknown reasons they cut off his pain meds. After trying to get more unsuccessfully, he came back with a gun and took a few hostages, saying he would trade them for meds. They gave him enough to knock him out, then resolved the situation. No one got hurt, always wonder what happened to that dude afterwards.
Yes John, when I started sailing they put out a booklet explaining how the USPHS was created specifically for the US merchant marine. To keep us from spreading diseases around the states when we came back from overseas. Some rich guy put up the money to pay for it for a long time. Kind of like the Smithsonian.
Reagan shut it down for us and turned the hospitals over to the welfare crowd.
Reagan shut it down for us and turned the hospitals over to the welfare crowd.
Reagan never turned anything over to the “welfare crowd”. He simply did not want the government to pay for healthcare for mariners or anyone else. He favored the private equity crowd.
The USPHS was still approving new hire medical exam results for MSC, NOAA and other mariner organizations in the late 1999s. Don’t know if they still do though.
In light of the recent Covid pandemic I have thought an active USPHS with more than 6000 workers would be helpful.
well I do know for a fact that he shut it down for mariners and it was still available for many more years for people who didn’t have anywhere else to go
An old note from the past.
https://www.cruiselawusa.com/suing-ronald-reagan.html
I know that too. The unions oddly supported him shutting it down thinking they would create their own profit making health scheme. Didn’t work out so mariners were screwed, again.
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for sure, screwed like every other person who depends on health insurance through their job. It used to be SO nice not to have to worry about that. You could leave a crap job any time and not have to worry about it.
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Yes, I am surprised the unions backed that plan. Have had great health care through AMO over many years as a retiree. My bride still is covered. Now Medicare for me. My knees hurt, have to quit posting for a bit. .
USPHS still does the pre hire physical at NOAA . They have an office inside the Marine Operations Center Pacific (Newport, OR) where 2 or 3 USPHS Officers are stationed full time. They support the ships by supplying and maintaining the hospitals onboard. If a NOAA ship is go on a trip beyond 30 days a USPHS Officer will ride as “ships doctor”. I took a NOAA in-house MPIC class taught by a USPHS doctor that was USCG approved.
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When I hired on at NOAA around 2002 I was given a BMP card. It stood for Beneficiary Medical Plan and it covered 100% of anything and was no cost to me. Around 2006 it was suddenly announced that we would need to purchase our own health care. Did anyone else have this BMP card?
Side note: I should have gotten my penis reduction surgery when I had the chance with BMP. Now it’s going to cost me a fortune with copays and scaffolding/ heavy equipment fees.
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From page 39 of the book Steaming To Bamboola
This scene takes place in 1979 in a seedy sailor bar stateside after a jealous girlfriend stabs an AB in the stomach:
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Are you sure about that? I’m reading about Pail Hall’s death and one of the things he was proudest of was keeping the hospitals open:
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John
Take it for what it is worth.
I do know there were deals being made behind the scenes to prevent Reagan from breaking the maritime unions like he did PATCO. Reagan hated unions which was strange, he liked actors union which he used to head. Maybe because they paid him?
Blast from the past
https://medium.com/work-today/reagan-slammed-trade-unions-salaries-never-recovered-again-3231464fbb04
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Nice find Mr Konrad.
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Good Morning John…
having been an active participant at the D-1 MEBA Union Hall in NJ when this was going on, I remember specifically that at least two of the unions supported Reagan’s budget cutting initiatives… SIU did NOT share the concurrence of MEBA nor MM&P as I recall.
We all shouted, screamed, yelled, protested when the Atlantic Coast VP said that MEBA was supporting Reagan’s “initiatives” I was in the Union Hall when this happened (April/May 1981)…
I also recall that SIU some time later expanded their Clinic system (remember the one on 4th Ave Brooklyn that everyone in NY had to clear through Dr. Logue?) That clinic system is still in use today…
I was against this initiative then, and I still am today. Further, it is my opinion that these budget moves (coupled with the loss of ODS & CDS funding) helped destroy the USMM as we know it- and instead largely funded the USN- while throwing away our ability to compete in shipping…
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A couple of things worth considering when pondering the complex reasons for the demise of the Marine Hospital Service:
One of the big issues with the MHS, at the time the govt. decided to pull the plug on it, was obsolescence of physical plants and technology, and the staggering cost, even then, of bringing the system up to date.
Around 1950, medical care began to grow in cost and complexity at an exponential rate. For an analogy, consider cars. In 1920, a Model T cost about $290 (=$3500 today w corr. for inflation). Twenty years later, an equivalent Ford wasn’t THAT much more complex or expensive. Sure, juice brakes and electric starting but that’s about all. Then fast forward another 20 years and things are starting to take off technology and engineering wise. Then fast forward another 40 years and it’s beginning to look like an altogether different product! But with a mass market and mass production, autos were able to stay at least somewhat within reach of most consumers. Medical care, on the other hand, partly of necessity and partly of desire remains a “cottage industry” with customizing to some degree for virtually every “unit” of production! So economies of management and scale are very hard to impossible to impose on most of what the MHS did.
When I served in the PHS Commissioned Corps in the late 1960s, we were providing care at about a 1948 Ford level in a 1968 world. And the cost of upgrading the system to close that 20 year technology and equipment gap was already pretty daunting. And the handwriting was on the wall for the steep climb that was going to be necessary for all medical care providers and facilities. And that has come true to an amplified degree! The government was providing good but marginal care in 1968 and could see that there was probably little way they could catch up and stay caught up going forward.
The other thing in play that few realize was the physician manpower problem of the USPHS. As long as we had a draft that included almost all physicians upon finishing training…100% of my med school’s class of 1967 either served voluntarily or got drafted…the PHS Commissioned Corps was a number one choice of many graduating physicians (whose draft boards began to breathe down their neck at graduation).
The PHS was such a popular choice that it had the right to pick and choose from a surplus of applicants for a commission. When the draft ended, so did uniformed service, in ANY branch of the military or the PHS, as a likely choice for first job for most newly minted physicians. Sure, it’s a good career, with pay scale and benefits of the military rather than civil service. But unless you’re oriented to the remaining missions of the PHS, many of which do not include much “primary medical care”, the PHS is probably not going to be on your job search list.
So lack of funds to close a huge and widening investment gap, plus lack of the previous ready source of physician manpower really meant that the Marine Hospital Service was headed for the history books one way or another and sooner rather than later.
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Thank you for the insight, that makes a lot of sense but… why not just merge with the VA hospitals?
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If they were two public corporations, with smart, creative boards, that probably COULD have happened in one alternate universe.
I’m no political scientist or economist policy wonk, but I’ll take a stab at saying WHY, in the government world, things don’t work like that.
IMHO, the bottom line issue is SUBSIDY, both direct and indirect (imposing the draft on all physicians coming out of training was a HUGE indirect subsidy on every branch of government medical care ESPECIALLY the Army, which got you if you were drafted). The government doesn’t start or run enterprises to MAKE money for its owner shareholders through providing a useful product or service. If it did, and it was on the ball the way a business enterprise should be, it would stay on top of investment in its capitalization (facilities and equipment) and in its staffing so as to continue to provide a desirable product.
The govt. operates from a totally different approach: lawmakers perceive a need (or have it “brought to their attention” by “helpful lobbyists” more likely!), pass a law for creation and funding, and try to fill the need. But there are huge competing constituencies trying to get their needs met, or met better, and so huge conflicting demands on resources (tax revenues and the organizations they support) that are in relatively short supply.
Something’s gotta give and making those decisions is called politics. A dirty job under the best of circumstances. At least that’s what conservatives like Regan thought. From their approach, the less the government was involved with ANYTHING, the better. No question that government can NEVER, EVER approach the degree of efficiency or rational management that profit oriented private businesses routinely provide. And of course when a private business doesn’t do that, it fails and goes away. Very few things the government ever takes up end up going away!
How much Reagan personally had to do with it is unknown to me, but his administration saw the chance to wipe out one whole sector where they weren’t performing all that well anyway, so they took it.
It’s a whole 'nother book to get into how much the government should be involved in health care at all. But I will tell you that, looking back on the 40 years I spent in that industry, much of what’s wrong with it now was caused by the government. Mostly by misguided and misplaced SUBSIDIES! Too late to undo that now though and I pessimistically believe that they’ll probably have to take it over to save it…but it won’t be pretty and nobody will be exceptionally happy with the result!
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I have a friend who was a radiologist at the Public Health Hospital in San Francisco. She described the strangest x-ray she ever read was seeing one of those 7 oz Coke bottles in a body. She’s served her internship and residency there until it was closed. She continued her public service by providing free and low-cost mammograms to poor women in the San Francisco North Bay.
Why are people longing for a return of the crappy “free” Marine Hospitals? The low quality of care sucked. They were a two hour drive from home. And they gave employers an excuse not to provide health insurance. They weren’t really free. And why should the government be providing free health care to only one type of workers. Good riddance.
Moreover, this was shutdown 40 years ago!
Let’s talk about affordable healthcare for today.
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