December 16, 2014
Henry J. Kaiser on veteran employment and benefits
Henry J. Kaiser presenting Kaiser-Frazer car to veteran owned and operated G.I. Taxi company, promotion for Kaiser Community Homes, Panorama City, Calif., 1948
Over the past year, dedicated professionals across Kaiser Permanente have taken steps to position the organization as a destination employer for veterans. Kaiser Permanente’s goal is to ensure it provides a supportive and inclusive environment for all individuals within its current and future workforce, including those with military backgrounds.
But for a health plan born in the crucible of the last world war, support for those who served is not a new idea.
On October 17, 1944 — less than a year before the war neared its end — Henry J. Kaiser addressed an audience at the Herald Tribune Forum in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York City. The topic? Jobs for all.
"On this one fact, there is unanimous agreement: every man in the American Forces has the right to come home not only to a job but to peace. Anything less would be a denial of the true American way of life. Peace means so much more than a cessation of hostilities! Peace is a state of mind. It is based on the sense of security. There can be no peace in the individual soul unless there is peace in the souls of all with whom we must live and work. Jobs for all could well be the first slogan for a just and lasting peace.
"… I have always believed that the future belongs to youth; it is theirs to build. Here is an opportunity to help youth see the pattern emerging out of a great surge of social forces. There must be purpose in the cause to which a whole generation of youth is giving their lives.
Billboard for Highland Estates, a Kaiser postwar housing development connected to the Panorama City hospital; sign advertises discounts for veterans, circa 1950.
"Often I am classified as a dreamer, particularly when I talk about health insurance. To live abundantly and take part in a productive economy, our people must have health. This is not only a matter of medical science but of facilities. Health service can be rendered on a self-sustaining insurance basis, at a price well within the reach of all. The cost of such medical care might be incorporated in the monthly payments on the home, freeing the American family from the fear of illness and the loss of income!
"We can go further and insure the payments when illness overtakes the head of the family. If American industry builds and equips modern hospitals in one thousand American communities in the first year after the war, prepaid medical service could then be organized around these facilities. The five hundred million dollars so spent will generate employment for two hundred and fifty thousand workers. I am speaking from the experience of operating seven hospitals on this basis. It is encouraging to read recent announcements that public health authorities are now thinking along these lines. Organized medicine is beginning to see the wisdom of this sound principle…
"Remember, youth will not be handicapped by the prejudices or blindness of an outmoded past. The men and women who have accomplished the impossible in defense, in war, and in sustaining a war effort throughout the world, are not apt to be afraid. Our nation was created by men of faith, against obstacles such as you and I have never known. Our country is sustained by men of faith today in the midst of battle. There will be jobs for all if the men of faith have their way."
