[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.'' ____________________