Louisville Magazine is Louisville's city magazine, covering Louisville people, lifestyles, politics, sports, restaurants, entertainment and homes. Includes a monthly calendar of events.
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18 LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 3.16 THE BIT March 1960 FLASHBACK On the cover: A patient lounges on an operating table, his mouth cartoonishly wide, while clusters of surgeons hover around him. "Can we cut the high cost of health?" the cover line asks. Again, this was in 1960. An issue of Louisville Magazine back then cost 35 cents. Inside: The medical-themed issue included a story that — well, even "a sledgehammer couldn't have hit any harder." The piece men- tioned how, in late February, rapt Louisvillians watched a WHAS 90-minute recorded telecast of an open-heart surgery at Children's Hospital. A 13-member surgical team performed the operation on "little Gussie," a 5 ½-year-old and "the 24th patient to undergo open-heart surgery in Louisville since the frst successful operation was performed here in late 1958." What was the outlook for medical costs in 1960? According to another story: "Up. Hospital men and medical men see no other possibility. Hospital costs are going up rapidly and are expected to rise 5 to 7 percent a year for the foreseeable future." In 1935, the average daily cost of a hospital stay was $5.50. For 1960, the Chamber of Commerce project- ed $28.50. (Today, the average cost per inpatient day is close to $2,000.) "The one in fve of us who is hospitalized this year has to face it — he will be subsidizing the training of nurses, technicians, interns, residents. He'll be subsi- dizing the non-paying patient. "Most of the professionals most intimately and seriously concerned will tell you — privately — that the alternative to reason- able and workable answers is the alternative almost no one wants: some form of national health insurance." Outside: A sampling of Couri- er-Journal headlines from March 1960: "Juvenile Obesity De- cried"; "Ministers Block Dancing Ordinance"; "City Declared Able to Ban Segregation"; "Snows Up to 20 Inches Paralyze State"; "Jef- fersonville-Bridge Interchange Approved"; "Experts Split on Ox- ygen's Value"; "Barking of Canine Suburbanites Is a Major Cause for Complaint"; "Easter Edict: Ordinance Forbids Dyed Chicks, Ducks"; "15 Million Refugees Are Still Waiting." — Jessica Good kentuckytotheworld.org