[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 19]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 26304]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]


[[Page 26304]]

           QUENTIN YOUNG: ``THE CONSCIENCE FOR THE COUNTRY''

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY

                              of illinois

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, December 13, 2001

  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, some of my colleagues have had the 
privilege of getting to know Dr. Quentin Young, a revered Chicago 
institution known for his unremitting commitment to health care, 
economic and social justice. Some of us know him because of his 
dedication to universal health care, under the banner he coined of 
``Everybody in, nobody out.'' Some of us know him because of his 
leadership in protecting public health. Some of us know him because of 
his dedication to ending discrimination and bigotry. I also known him 
because he is a trusted friend and my personal physician.
  Dr. Young brought his years of activism, dedication, and enthusiasm 
to the House last spring, when he testified at the inaugural meeting of 
the House Universal Health Care Task Force. I share his lifelong goal 
of universal health care for all and agree that he is the ``conscience 
of the country'' on this issue.
  Dr. Young's remarkable spirit and career are described in a December 
9, 2001 article in the Chicago Tribune. It is entitled ``The Patient 
Doctor,'' and chronicles the story of a remarkable individual who 
fights every day to improve people's lives and our nation, and I urge 
my colleagues to read the entire article, but I want to provide a brief 
sampling of Dr. Young's extraordinary.

       Young was barely launched on his medical center in the 
     early 1950s when he became a leading advocate--and one of the 
     few whites--in the fight to end the discriminatory attitudes 
     and practices at Chicago-area hospitals that led to minority 
     physicians' being denied practice privileges at all but Cook 
     County Hospital. In 1964, he co-founded the Medical Committee 
     for Human Rights, a group of progressive physicians who 
     provided medical care at civil rights marches and sit-ins and 
     riots.
       That role earned Young a prestigious position in the civil 
     rights movement: He was Martin Luther King Jr.'s doctor when 
     King lived in Chicago in 1966. His committee affiliation also 
     got Young subpoenaed to appear before the House Un-American 
     Activities Committee in October 1968 to answer questions 
     about his and the medical committee's role during the riots 
     at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago that year--
     an experience friends say was a high point of Young's career 
     because he believed he got the best of verbal sparring with 
     committee members.
       Young and the late Dr. Jorge Prieto, former head of the 
     Chicago Board of Health, were the primary forces behind the 
     movement to establish neighborhood medical clinics in the 
     late '60s. Their work led to the current network of 32 
     medical clinics throughout Cook County that will support the 
     new $500 million Cook County Hospital.
       Even now, nearing his 80th year, Young cannot keep still. 
     ``I am impulsively an advocate,'' he says.
       In addition to running an internal medicine practice in his 
     native Hyde Park--as he has done since 1952--the 
     indefatigable doctor is medical commentator for National 
     Public Radio on WBEZ-FM and helps direct two organizations he 
     founded to advocate for national health care (often referred 
     to by critics as socialized medicine): Physicians for a 
     National Health Program and the Health and Medicine Policy 
     Research Group.
       Last summer, he and other health-care activists marched for 
     15 days across 137 miles of northern Illinois to drum up 
     political support for the Bernardin Amendment to the state 
     constitution. Named for the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, 
     who supported universal health care, the proposed amendment 
     would guarantee health insurance for every Illinois resident.
       Despite the long odds against any national health-care 
     reform in a closely divided Congress, Young is optimistic 
     about national health insurance being enacted, even after the 
     war on terrorism put many domestic issues on the back burner. 
     ``I think very emphatically that the complications of Sept. 
     11 create a much more urgent need for national health 
     insurance,'' he says. ``Our current system is imploding. Even 
     with our straitened circumstances economically, because of 
     the incredible administrative waste in the present system, 
     there's still enough money there to take care of everybody.''
       Of course, being at the forefront of divisive social and 
     political issues can be risky, as Young learned in 1954 when 
     as a young doctor he took a stand on an issue that cost him 
     his job.
       On Jan. 17, 1954, 15-month-old Laura Lingo was severely 
     scalded when a vaporizer full of melted menthol oil 
     overturned on top of her in her South Side home. The 
     toddler's mother, Irene, rushed her to nearby Woodlawn 
     Hospital, which no longer exists. Irene Lingo had little 
     money and no hospital insurance.
       After initial emergency treatment, officials at Woodlawn 
     decided not to admit the baby because of the mother's 
     inability to pay and sent them to Cook County Hospital. The 
     baby died there the next day.
       A coroner's inquest found Woodlawn Hospital negligent in 
     the baby's death. Young, an attending physician at Woodlawn, 
     was among several Chicago doctors who signed a letter 
     published in one of the daily papers condemning the practice 
     of hospitals' sending poor patients to Cook County. Not long 
     after the letter was printed, Woodlawn revoked Young's 
     privileges, putting the young physician and father out of 
     work.
       Neither that nor any other setback has slowed Young down. 
     He has been doing his advocacy work, seeing patients in his 
     Hyde Park office and getting his various messages out through 
     press conferences, newspaper op-ed pieces and, until 
     recently, his weekly radio show ``Public Affairs'' on WBEZ. 
     The war on terrorism has given him new spins on his causes, 
     such as the recent anthrax-by-mail cases, which he says 
     underscored the need to correct serious shortcomings in the 
     public-health system.
       ``We can end huge threats to human existence,'' says Young, 
     a former president of the American Public Health Association, 
     noting that public-health campaigns were able to defeat 
     smallpox, polio and flu. ``And we can help with our current 
     problem if we make our public health infrastructure really 
     muscular, by training more epidemiologists and computerizing 
     our 3,000 county, city and state public health 
     organizations.''
       Right or not, he will always be doing something, friends 
     say. Dr. Ida Hellander, executive director of Physicians for 
     a National Health Program who has worked with Young for 10 
     years, took a sabbatical last summer to rest and study 
     photography in Montana. Just before leaving, she turned to 
     her boss and mentor and asked him, partly out of frustration: 
     ``Quentin, don't you ever think about what it'd be like to 
     live like regular people--not be so aware of all the social 
     injustice, all the suffering, all the great struggles?''
       Young didn't miss a beat: ``Yes, Ida,'' he responded. ``I 
     call it death.''

     

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