The Experimental Health Program of the United States Department of Agriculture

Excerpts from the Foreword: This report deserves careful study by all who are seeking the way to better health for our whole population. We hear a great deal about voluntary health insurance today, and the suggestion is often made that with supplemental support from public funds voluntary health insurance might solve the problem for the lower-income groups as well as those fully able to pay. This timely report deals not with theories but with actual operating programs of tax-assisted voluntary health insurance. Aside from its broader implications, this painstaking and thoughtful study will be of immediate usefulness to the Department of Agriculture’s Interbureau Committee on Postwar Programs which is sponsoring the “experimental” rural health program. The study will be particularly helpful, too, to the Farm Security Administration, which is responsible for supervising and furnishing financial aid to the experimental rural health associations. The implications of this report go far beyond those bearing on day-to-day administration. It holds lessons for every rural community and for urban as well as rural America.