Defender of Charity Hospitals
Much of Rayburn's power came through his chairmanship of the Senate Finance Committee, where he stressed his desire to "protect the little man" and the poor from budget cuts in social services and the state's public hospitals known as "charity hospitals" and other social services.
Rayburn said in a 2006 interview with the Bogalusa Daily News, that he supported unpopular tax hikes in 1948 which helped to defeat the Long statewide slate of candidates in 1952, but those levies still finance the state's charity hospital system. Rayburn worked to secure a charity hospital for Bogalusa. He pushed for the air conditioning of Charity Hospital of New Orleans, known as "Big Charity". Rayburn himself once sought treatment at Big Charity when he contracted spinal meningitis. Rayburn said the system is essential in Louisiana because many of its residents cannot afford medical insurance. When Governor Charles E. "Buddy" Roemer, III, tried to close the charity hospital in Amite in Tangipahoa Parish, Rayburn blocked him by merely returning the appropriation to the spending bill. In effect, he showed that the chairman of the Finance Committee could trump the governor.
As a House member, Rayburn began work in 1948 on the Washington-St. Tammany Charity Hospital in Bogalusa, which opened in January 1951, shortly before he entered the Senate.
Mike Baer described Rayburn as "the last of the great populists in this state, He carried on the Long legacy until he left (the Senate). He was truly for "the poor man" and championed universal tax-funded health care.
Read more about this topic: Sixty Rayburn
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