Veterans' Oaths

If a Veterans Administration hospital has an empty bed it must admit an ailing ex-serviceman even if his illness has nothing to do with his military duty. He simply swears that he has no means to pay for private care, and a 1935 law has been interpreted as forbidding the VA to check up on his story. Doctors and medical administrators have long protested this soft-headed provision, but to no avail. Last week Republican Congressman John Phillips of California told how it is being abused.

Phillips' appropriations subcommittee picked out 500 affidavits which looked fishy, and did its own checking. It found that 336 of the patients who had taken the oath of indigence actually had incomes of $4,000 to $50,000 a year. And 25 of them owned property valued at $20,000 to $500,000.

If the present policy is continued, said Phillips, it will cost $4 billion for 200,000 extra beds and "take us into socialized medicine without our realizing it."

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