Plenary Session Transcripts

Governors Attending:

Guests:

Discussion Subjects:

New directions in health care; corrections; inter-American understanding; and no-fault insurance

Points of Interest:

Vice President Spiro Agnew told Governors that both domestic and foreign reaction to the Administration's wage-price freeze had been positive. [The freeze, initially planned for 90 days, lasted 1,000 days. It was sparked by rising inflation rates. See website [www.econreview.com/events/wageprice1971b.htm] He added that the President had proposed a balanced tax package that would reduce individual taxes by $3.3 billion and provide a tax credit of $2.7 billion to industry for investment in job-producing equipment and machinery.

Then-Representative Gerald Ford discussed three major health care proposals that were pending in Congress: (1) Senator Edward Kennedy's plan for national health insurance; (2) the AMA's "Medicredit" proposal, which would provide credits against individual income taxes to offset the cost of qualified private health insurance policy premiums; and (3) the Administration's proposed National Health Insurance Partnership Act, under which all employers would be required to provide health insurance for employees and their dependents and those not included in employer plans would have access to coverage developed through private insurance pools.

Although the criminal justice system had been a planned topic of discussion, coincidentally the infamous riot at Attica State Prison in upstate New York had just ended. [In early September, 1,300 inmates took over the prison, holding 40 staff members hostage and demanding improved prison conditions and better educational and training opportunities. Five days later, police and National Guard troops took back control, in the process of which 43 inmates and hostages were killed.] The Director of the Texas Department of Corrections talked about the need for more research into the effects of prison programs and practices, the expanded use of pre-release programs, and the increased involvement of higher educational institutions in the operation of the criminal justice system.

A number of prominent current and former Latin American public officials spoke to the Governors about U.S.-Latin American relations. They raised concern about Congress's use of retaliatory measures against Latin American countries that nationalized American firms, such as withholding of aid and the imposition of import quotas. They also noted that the transmission of the respective spheres of influence of the U.S. and USSR had caused many Latin American nations to postpone their own national aspirations, which were now being unleashed as the cold war wound down.

Experts on both sides of the "no-fault automobile insurance" issue debated the pros and cons of no-fault insurance. The "pro" expert argued that no-fault was inevitable, and that it was only a question of whether states took the initiative to legislate it or the federal government assumed control. The "con" expert argued that no-fault's compulsory basis and its prevention of victims from recovering damages for permanent injury, disfigurement, pain, and suffering were unfair. He also said that by opting against assigning liability, no-fault removed the deterrent effect of standard insurance. During their discussion of no-fault, Governors presented their own experiences with it as well as their concerns about whether it would be constitutional for the federal government to regulate automobile insurance in the states. The newly-elected president of the Commissioners on Uniform State Laws made a brief presentation on drafting of a uniform state no-fault insurance law.

Memorable Quotes:

Governor Warren Hearnes of Missouri, chair of the association, said in his opening remarks: "There are powerful individuals in the Congress and in the federal bureaucracy whose vision of state government was formed decades ago. While constructive change has swept state government in recent years, the views of these individuals have remained the same. Congress has shown an increasing disposition to elevate subordinate levels of government created by the States to a position of power over them...To those who have already written state government out of our federal system, I say they have dangerously misjudged our determination to remain strong and viable in the best interests of our citizens. To those who advocate the need for more and more power and control flowing to Washington, I say they are badly out of step with the growing wave of citizen sentiment that government close to the people must be strengthened. It is time for the Governors to roll up their sleeves and set about restoring a balance to our federal system...Governors, assisted by the [National Governors'] Conference's Washington staff, must assume individual responsibility for regular consultation with federal agencies and the Congress on all intergovernmental issues. By such individual efforts, the...Conference can become stronger and can make a measurable contribution to maintaining the critical position of the States within the federal system."

Then-Representative Gerald R. Ford said this about the health care system: "We are all aware of the advantages of health maintenance organizations...These organized systems of health care provide comprehensive services to their enrolled members for a fixed prepaid fee...To support HMOs, as they are called, the President has asked for planning grants to help establish new health maintenance organizations in medically underdeveloped areas."

With respect to the wage-price freeze imposed by the Administration, Vice President Spiro Agnew said: "...the overwhelming reaction of Americans everywhere has been a patriotic determination to do their part toward making the freeze work voluntarily...Corporations overwhelmingly throughout the Nation have complied with the President's request not to increase dividend payments, because there is an understanding of the need to share the sacrifice...We have received mail and telegrams from many union members and from union locals adding their cooperation to all the rest...Of course, there has been criticism...But future historians, looking back at this period, will remember the 'freeze of '71' as a time when the American people willingly pitched in together to do all that they were called upon to do."

Fred Wilkinson, Director of the Missouri Department of Corrections, said: "...there is little wonder that we are going through another of these periodic crime waves...The dispossessed have come to cities looking for streets of gold, looking for high-paying jobs in abundance, and find neither of these things...Also, we have been faced in the last 10 years with another segment of population, a totally different type of people. If we start with about 70 percent of the people who come to us because of inability to make it on the outside, the other 30 percent would have to come from what I call the hippie, yippie group. These are the people who are totally hostile. They are hostile to government, hostile to their keepers once they enter the institutions, they want disorder, and they don't want cleanliness."

Governor Luis Ferre of Puerto Rico said: "...I am concerned that many young people in the Hemisphere seem to envision the United States as a nation intoxicated by power, addicted to warfare, controlled by a military-industrial complex, and determined to preserve the status quo, that we are against rapid economic and social growth..."

Orville Richardson, past president of the American Trial Lawyers Association, said: "No-fault insurance plans are nothing but compulsory auto accident insurance, with all liability for faulty conduct excused, and all responsibility for pain and suffering wiped out or severely limited. It is good for no one except bad drivers."

Selected Policy Positions Adopted:
(1) Calling for community development block grants to states and localities, for a major new housing rehabilitation program and increased emphasis on removing racial barriers to housing, and for national efforts to improve public housing management; (2) supporting creation of a National Food and Fiber Board to stabilize the agricultural economy; (3) calling for the enactment of tax incentives to encourage business and industry to locate in nonmetropolitan areas; (4) endorsing in principle transportation special revenue sharing; (5) calling for the creation of a single unified transportation trust fund giving the Governors authority to transfer funds among programs to meet states' needs; (6) urging Congress to review expansion of the Amtrak system; (7) expressing the view that states must produce no-fault auto insurance systems to meet the needs of individual states; (8) reaffirming confidence in the law Enforcement Assistance Administration's block grant program; (9) proposing the consolidation of all federal programs dealing with juvenile delinquency into a single agency that would operate through a block grant mechanism; (10) urging that proposed welfare reform legislation be amended to—among other things—provide full federal funding of cost-of-living increases, give states the option of requiring recipients to perform public service work in community services but at a rate not less than the applicable minimum wage, extend the basic program to include childless single persons and childless couples then on general assistance, and remove limitations on federal participation in the cost of mental hospital and skilled nursing home care and social services; and (11) endorsing the concept of pre-paid group practice-health maintenance organizations.