40 Facing Trial in Boston Today For State House Welfare Sit-in

Twenty-five mothers on welfare and 15 students who support them are going on trial this morning in Boston. They are charged with trespassing and conspiracy to obstruct the orderly transaction of state business in connection with a sit-in last Thursday at the State House. If convicted, they face one year in jail.

The unusual severity of the charges against the members and the students can be traced to the conduct of Governor John A. Volpe.

Volpe is the target of strong criticism in a report on welfare that was released earlier this week by the legislative committee on social welfare headed by Sen. Beryl W. Cohen (D--Brookline).

Shocking Abuses

The report lists shocking abuses in the welfare system--which was taken over by the state from cities and towns just last August.

It categorically asserts that the abuses are the result of "profiteering" by local doctors and merchants and "chaotic and irresponsible mismanagement" by the Governor and his Public Welfare Director Robert F. Ott.

Governor Volpe's reaction has been to ignore almost completely the Cohen Report's conclusions and instead blame the poor and "agitators" for the present chaos in the state welfare system.

Volpe was in the Virgin Islands on vacation at the time of the sit-in, but he quickly flew back to Boston.

On Monday, the day after the Cohen Report hit the Boston newspapers, Volpe told the press that he had "definite evidence" that the sit-in was "part of a nationwide conspiracy to disrupt the public welfare system and to force us to bend whatever they have in mind."

The governor also recommended that still another commission study the welfare situation.

The Cohen Report, however, speaks of an extremely serious crisis that is already at hand. In a year (mostly in the six months since the state took over welfare), the number of persons on Medicaid and Aid to Dependent Children has doubled. The money given persons on welfare has doubled to $400 million. By 1971 this total may reach $1 billion, and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts may face bankruptcy.

The report catalogues startling individual abuses--veterinary treatment for a family pet paid for under Medicaid, a dentist collecting $164,000 in seven months from welfare patients, ten doctors averaging $100,000 each off welfare recipients, and so on.

Businessmen and doctors are making huge profits off the welfare system because of what the report terms "the mediocre, non-professional and lackadaisical concern of the Department of Public Welfare."

There is little if any regulation of the prices that doctors and merchants charge welfare recipients. A welfare patient can come in with a cold and be charged $25 by his doctor under Medicaid--the taxpayer pays the $25. The report says that the Welfare Department makes hardly any effort to keep down these exorbitant fees. The doctor gains, the taxpayer loses; the welfare recipient is unaffected because the service of the doctor would presumably be the same whether it costs $2.50 or $25.

The report shows how this system hurts not only the taxpayers but also poor people who need welfare.

Since the rules for getting on welfare are so lax, the people who really need welfare get their share diluted; those who are most needy are the real victims.

Because of the huge sums paid doctors under Medicaid, other important aspects of welfare are neglected--there is little money or time to consider them.

Commissioner of Administration and Finance Anthony P. DeFalco confirmed this late last week when he told welfare mothers asking for a winter clothing allowance that they would just have to wait until the department straightened out its Medicaid administrative problems.

As the report says, "If we are ever going to bring about a solution to this chaotic and irresponsible mismanagement of public monies, then the governor must demand that the programs and the monies actually reach those citizens for whom it was intended."

Instead, the governor so far has attacked welfare mothers asking for winter clothes for their children, saying that they are trying to bring down the welfare system. So far, no legal action has been initiated against the doctors, merchants, and perhaps even welfare administrators who have been profiteering off the public welfare system.

The Cohen Report has been regarded throughout the country as an important document. It shows how welfare is big business for wealthier members of the community, and how the poor and the taxpayers are hurt most by a system that is supposed to benefit them.