Newspapers / Jones County Journal (Trenton, … / Aug. 20, 1970, edition 1 / Page 1
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v THE JONES COUNTY NUMBER 12 TRENTON, N. C., THURSDAY, AUGUST 20, 1070 VOLUME xvm Social Security Check Helps Greatly Motherless Family with Five Children On October 28, 1959, Elisha Lovick of .Dover was faced with the task of having to rear his five young children when his wife, Eunice, was stricken with a fatal heart attack At that time it seemed impos sible for Lovick to work and keep his family together. “Maqy times I thought I would have to turn some of the children over to the Welfare Department,” Lo vick stated, “but with the help of my family and friends we stayed together.” Lovick inquired at the Social Security office after his wife’s death, but was told that she had not worked' enough before her death to be insured for socM se curity benefits. "> It was not until April 1970 that Lovick asked again about Social Security benefits for Ws children, lie then learned; tffaat recent amendments to the so cial security law had changed the requirements so that chil dren aTe now deemed to be de pendent on -both of their par ents, and the amount of wort? his wife had done-was sufficient to allow benefits to be paid on her earmngs. Prior to tins change a wom an must have been fully insur ed and also have recent em ployment in the three years: prior to her death. The Lovrcks’ first check of $1,585 represented payments re- < troacGve to April 1969. The ' children will now be entitled to a regular monthly benefit of $123.50. Elisha Lovick can now depend on over $10,000 in social security benefits to help in sup porting his family. This amount may be increased if his children continue their education after age 18. Social security benefits, as the Lovicks discovered, are not only for the aged or disabled, but for young families who can depend on this added insurance in the event of the death of a bread winner. The five Lovick children are only a small part of the over 3,900,800 survivors who receive social security benefits each year. Jerry Freeman, manager of the Kinston Social Security of fice, said the facts about the Lo vicks’ benefits were made pub lic only throgu'h Lovick’s per mission, as social security rec ords are confidential. Freeman urges anyone with questions about how social se curity may affect them to call or come by fhe Kinston office, 810 West Vernon Avenue. The office is open TVfonday through Friday, 8:45 p:m. to 5 p:m. The Kinston Social Secarity office serves "Greene and Lenoir Counties; however, Lovicjk of Dover, requested that fhe IQns- : ton office handle his claim be- : cause it was more convenient for i him. ! Lightning Damages Home Tuesday At 3:42 Tuesday afternoon firemen answered a call to the home of Mrs. Carl Wooten on the Kinston Highway near the Jones County line. Lightning re portedly struck the attic of the home, doing some $3,000 dam age to the home and $500 dam age to the contents. The call' was answered by Lenoir County Fire Units 6 and 7. Jones County's 1st Slice of 1% Soles Tox Amounts to $17,961 The first division of funds col lected in those county’s approv ing an additional one-cent sales was announced this week in Raleigh. Jones County’s share totaled $17,961.57, with the county treasury getting $15,500.06, Maysville’s $1,187.82, Trenton’s $688.90 and Pollocksville’s $1584.77. Lenoir’s slice was larger: $139,553.10, Kinston’s was sec ond at $46,162.02, LaGrange was next in line wtih $4,224.28, Pink mil’s slice was $952.10 and the portion of Grifton that is on the Lenoir County side of Content nea Creek got $406.11. Collections for this 3-month period totalled $197,933.79 in Lenoir County and $8,933.55 in Jones County. Listed below are the local 1 Study «f '64 Graduates from Carolina Show Wide Gap Between Male-Females In Salaries Paid; Other Items of Interest by William Friday, President, University of North Carolina The Placement Service of the University of North Carolina at campus with some interesting resalts. Although women graduates made better grades, they do not make as much money in jobs as the nren. The poll dis closed, however, that 46 per cent of the men have earned advanced academic or profes sional degrees compared to 17 per cent of the women. The median salary of employ ed men is $TO,000 for those who stayed in North Carolina, and $16,945 for those who work out side the'state. For women, the median salary is $7,000 for those in state, $8,600 for those out of state. Men who majored in preden tistry, accounting and pharmacy earn higher median salaries among employed men. Women working as programmers, com munications workers and in the field of nursing receive higher median salaries among women. An Exception In comparative jobs, men usual ly receive higher pay than wom en. There is an exception in programmers, the new vocation associated with computers. Fe male programmers draw a me dian salary of $10,900, males $9, 875. Nearly 90 per cent of the men and about 50 per cent of the women hold full-time jobs. About 10 per cent of the men are still in graduate or profes sional schools and do not have full-time jobs. The poll showed a salary varia per cent sales and use tax col lections by counties for the month of July, 1970. County Not Collections Buncombe Camden Chowan Clay Cumberland Currituck Duplin Durham Greene Hertford Jackson Jones Lenoir Macon Madison Mecklenburg New Hanover Onslow Pamlico Pasquotank Perquimans Richmond Swain Tyrrell Watauga Wayne Toal $216,847.66 1,565.36 11.628.38 3,384.89 223,371.25 3,790.01 32.556.71 226,814.07 6,285.17 24.415.38 18.392.55 4.281.41 75.405.32 23,961.29 6,632.59 609,997.50 164,840.69 79,599.80 5,197.63 36,041.17 5.182.41 48.549.71 9,449.84 2.320.55 35.944.32 98,451.34 $1,984,906.99 | ion between men who have stuck with their first job and those who have changed jobs. The median salary reported by 208 males who have worked for one firm is $10,900, while the median re ported by 139 men who have changed employers is $10,000. Other findings: —The typical 1964 male grad uate is 27, married, works full time in a business outside North Carolina for the first employer who hired him, and earns $10, 488. —The typical woman graduate has been married five years or more and has one child. She ac tively participates in two or more community activities. —Of the women, more than 95 per cent have worked at some time since graduation — 78 per cent from three to five years. The 135 women currently unemployed left work for sev eral reasons: 62 oer cent to have Continued from page 1 PAYING MORE, GETTING LESS; THE EXPENSIVE STORY OF MEDICINE IN AMERICA TODAY by JadkRkfor Americans are pending more for medical care today than any other people in Ae world, ei ther in gross expenditure or in per capita expenditure, but the levd of American medical serv ices is far down the line when compared with other nations of! the world. The United States ranks 14th in the world i9 infant mortality at 22.1 deaths per thousands. Those countries out-ranking the United States and their infant mortality rates are: Sweden 12.9; Netherlands 19.4, Finland 14.2, Norway 14.6, Japan 15.0, Den mark 15.8, Switzerland 17.5, New Zealand 18.0, Australia 18.3, Britain 18.3, France 20.6, East Germany 21.2 and. Canada 22.0. Also tiie United States ranks 13th in maternal deaths, 18th in life expectancy for men, 11th in life expentancy for women, and 18th in the number of men who died between'40 and 50 years of age. Five years ago the annual med ical1 bill of the nation was run ning at 337 billion, and'this year it will pass $63 ibillion and those who have nerve enough to reg ister guesses in this inflationary area of medical economics pre dict that the annual cost will hit $200 billion by the 1980’s. • Yet with pressing shortages of the 25,000 applicants. "But then is more doctors the automatic answer to the Sky rocketing cost of medical care-? Not necessarily. ' ! Or is totally socialized medi Jcine the answer, to either the cost or the lower degree of med , ical efficiency? Not necessarily, i Some apoligize for the rela tive poor Showing ttf American medicine by pointing to thehigh er mortality rates in all cate gories among Negroes, but a recent California survey show ed white people ranking behind Japanese In every index of goad health. It cannot be contradicted that those nations with the best health records are all-white, orsoj [nearly all-white as to he all I mute for statistical purposes. Some bitterly opposed to the trend toward' socialized *edi ' cine point to the fact that the nation ranked 'better when med icine was more a private than a public operation, and they hold up recent exposures of many great city public hospitals in wlpfch accreditation has been withdrawn because of sub-stand ard practices. ~ Connecticutt Senator Abraham Ribicoff in an article written for “Saturday Review” this week begms by pointing up one fact of the sorry picture: “About two years ago the wife of a 43 year-old house painter in Alabama was hospitalized for cancer of the cervix and colon pregnant with the couple’s Over an 18-month several opera parses and heavy dosages of expensive drugs but ehe died. Her hus band was left with a $30,000 medical bill, of which only $9, 000 was cowered by insurance. Ruinous medical bills like this are only one example of what is wrong with American health -care. 1(If the 'painter had lived In Sweden, which has national health insurance, his wife’s hos pital Ml would have been $1.40 per day, doctor’s visits would have cost $1.35 each, and drugs, if not free, would have teen provided at minimal cost.) Another is that this woman was among 100,000 Americans who die of cancer each year \yho might be sawed by earlier | and better care.” Ribicoff is a farmer secre tary of the Health, Education and Welfare department, and is given to high flights of rhetoric on occasion -when he hopes to make a political point or‘two. First, there is no possible val idity to the presumption that the Alabama Housewife might have lived had she been Swed ish, nor is there the slightest basis in fact for the loose as sertion that 100,000 Americans are dying each year from can cer for lack of either earlier or better dare. In 1969 the total dancer deaths from the digestive tract were 93,620, and deaths from cancer of the genital or gans were 41,840. To save 100, 000 out of 135,000 in these cat egories suffered by this woman is too much even for today’s medicine to claim. , f Ribicoff is one who favors tot ally socialized medicine, and this may be the only answer to this dilemma since semi-socialized medicine has only added to the cost and has not made any ma jor contribution to the effective ness of American medicine. Since there is no immediate likelihood of a return to totally private medicine and since the semi-socialized medicine is not working it is most likely that some congress not too far from now is going to buy the entire package. But West Germany has had socialized medicine 40 years, has no ethnic excuses for lowered health problems, is most affluent and yet its record is even lower than that of the United* States in many areas. I as one doctor put it: “Too many people can now afford poor health!’’ Now welfare clients, those past 65 and veterans all get free — or nearly free medical care — free to them that is, but not to the taxpayer. Anoth er large segment of the popula tion is covered by one or more hospitalization policies — per mitting some to make a profit on being sick. People now go to the doctor for what they used to ignore or take an aspirin. People now go to the hospital for a few days of rest or to make < possible coverage by their in surance of a routine examina- . tion that not so long ago- was < either done in the home or in i the doctor’s office. One travel- 1 ing salesman spent every week- < end in a hospital for over a year because it was cheaper than ho tels or motels with the medical insurance he had. Locally a school teacher drew disability pay on a medical polic" for 28 weekends in a year and never missed a day of teaching school. *J?n,eiather found h™self with *3? left over when one of his Children had a tonsillectomy be cause of double coverage he had through his place of employ ment and that of his wife and in short order his other five chil dren were hauled in for tonsil trims and he pocketed $35 on each and wondered next year why the cost of his hospitaliza tion insurance went up. Anoiner growing segment of medicine of modern medicine is devoted to curing the cures or treating side-effects of im properly tested: or improperly used miracle drugs. One eminent physician had this to say: “We have failed mis erably to meet the public de mand for cost controls and com prehensive medical insurance, high and uniform quality of ser vices, and equality of access to our services. We have created manpower shortages at all levels of the health field. We have fa vored the producers of health services — hospitals, doctors and drug companies — over the consumers of such services. Our acute, curative, scientific and technical service is unex celled anywhere in the World. Our preventative and rehabilia tive services and our extended care and nursing home facili Cooitinued on page 8
Jones County Journal (Trenton, N.C.)
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Aug. 20, 1970, edition 1
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