Nominee Urges Medicare Aid for Catastrophic Illness

Otis R. Bowen, the “country doc” chosen by President Reagan to head the Health and Human Services Department, said today that Medicare should be expanded to cover catastrophic illness among the elderly.

Bowen testified before the Senate Finance Committee, which is considering his nomination, in his first public appearance as secretary-designate.

“This is one of my main priorities, to attempt to ease the burden of senior citizens with catastrophic illnesses,” Bowen said. “It would almost have to be in the next generation, but you have to start sometime.”

Even before his committee appearance, Bowen broke new policy ground by proposing the Medicare expansion for coverage of catastrophic illnesses, both acute and chronic. The expansion would be paid for by increases in premiums and through the creation of investment plans called Individual Medical Accounts, not by new government spending.

“There can be no doubt that the cost of catastrophic health care is the No. 1 concern of our nation’s elderly,” Bowen said. “One criteria for evaluating any nation is how well it responds to the needs and concerns of its elderly citizens.”

Bowen was named by Reagan on Nov. 7 as his choice to succeed Margaret M. Heckler as HHS secretary. Heckler, at Reagan’s request, is leaving the post to become ambassador to Ireland.

Sen. Bob Packwood (R-Ore.), the committee chairman, said he expected the committee to approve Bowen’s nomination Wednesday. Today’s hearing was friendly and Packwood said, “The man does not have a blemish or, apparently, an enemy.”

In announcing the nomination, Reagan cited Bowen’s experience as a popular, tax-cutting governor of Indiana and as a physician, including his 26 years of family practice in the small town of Bremen, Ind. Bowen also was a professor at the Indiana University School of Medicine.

But he also served as chairman of a presidential advisory council on Medicare, and some of the ideas he espoused there surfaced again at his confirmation hearing.