Quentin Young (1923-2016): Advocate, Activist, and “Rebel Without a Pause”

This July 1993 editorial by Quentin Young (written in collaboration with Ida Hellander) beautifully captures the spirit of the man and his deep commitments to health reform, political activism, and the quest for social justice. He wrote “Health Care Reform: A New Public Health Movement” as the United States seemed ready for a comprehensive overhaul of its health system. Two major options were in contention: the “managed competition” proposal of the Clinton administration and a Canadian-style “single-payer” proposal strongly promoted by a new advocacy organization, Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP). Managed competition gave a central role to the private insurance industry, whereas single-payer eliminated private insurance and, as in the Canadian health system and Medicare, relied on government administration and oversight.

Young pointed out that managed competition with its profit incentives and market mechanisms was largely untested. Considerable evidence indicated that US Medicare was far more efficient than private insurance, and the General Accounting Office demonstrated that

if the United States streamlined administration to Canadian levels by adopting a single-payer system . . . the savings would be enough to cover health care for every uninsured American.

The Clinton administration considered some modifications of its proposal to win over single-payer advocates but left a major role to private insurance, despite opinion polls showing a national majority in favor of the single-payer plan.

Quentin Young’s life and career moved from the identification of social needs and reform options to professional advocacy and popular political mobilization.¹ Born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1923, the son of Russian and Lithuanian immigrants, he spent some of his childhood in Oxford, North Carolina, and was acutely aware of segregation. By the time he entered high school in Chicago, Quentin had already developed strong political views.

In Hyde Park High School he joined the American Student Union, whose members identified as “progressive” and anti-Nazi. When he entered the University of Chicago in 1940, he became very aware of the disparity in health care options offered to students. White students were treated at the University hospital, but Black students were sent to Provident Hospital, a run-down and segregated institution.

In March 1943, Quentin enlisted in the US Army and trained as a battlefield medic. When discharged from the Army, he finished his medical education at Northwestern University under the GI Bill. He did his internship and first years of residency in general internal medicine at Chicago’s Cook County Hospital. In 1951 he was recruited into the US Public Health Service and assigned to a venereal disease control program in West Virginia, where he learned about the workplace exploitation of coal miners and other workers.

Quentin returned to Cook County as chief resident and, after completing his training, entered private practice, setting up an office in racially mixed Hyde Park, being well aware of the segregated condition of Chicago’s medical institutions. As a medical student, intern, and resident, he had been active in the Association of Interns and Medical Students, committed to national health insurance and ending racial discrimination. In 1951 Quentin helped found the Committee to End Discrimination in Chicago’s Medical Institutions that pushed for legislation to deny “licensure and tax exemption to hospitals that turn away patients solely because of their financial situation, race, creed, or color.” The Chicago City Council then passed legislation prohibiting hospitals from discriminating against patients or staff on the basis of race.

Quentin was active in the Civil Rights movement and the Medical Committee for Civil Rights, which provided medical care during the March on Washington in the summer of 1963. In 1964, the Medical Committee for Civil Rights became the Medical Committee for Human Rights (MCHR) and played a major role in 1964’s “Freedom Summer.” Quentin joined the volunteers who traveled south to provide care for sick, injured, and jailed civil rights workers. In 1965 he met Martin Luther King, who became his patient in 1966.

Chicago’s MCHR chapter played a major role both locally and nationally.² In 1967–1968 Quentin became MCHR national chair, and when he was reelected in 1970 the national office moved to Chicago.

By 1970, Quentin had become something of a celebrity to political progressives following the Democratic Party’s contentious 1968 National Convention. As anti-Vietnam War groups converged in Chicago, MCHR organized its members and allies to provide medical support in case of violence. On August 25 police used billy clubs and tear gas to force demonstrators from Lincoln Park, and on August 28 protestors were clubbed, gassed, and beaten as they attempted to march to the Convention site. MCHR treated 425 demonstrators injured by the police. The Mayor’s office issued a report to smear the demonstrators, “The Strategy of Confrontation,” and MCHR responded with “The Strategy of Contusion,” documenting the injuries. Quentin was served with a subpoena by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) to testify about alleged Communist influence on the demonstrators. At the hearing Quentin befuddled HUAC by citing his First Amendment rights and by masterfully holding his ground during testimony (a transcript of this testimony is available as a supplement to the article at http://www.ajph.org). He questioned the Committee’s authority and read into the record “The Strategy of Contusion” and statements attacking the legitimacy of HUAC. The Committee excused him without penalty, and Quentin’s victory was widely celebrated.

Quentin’s next major challenge was the chairmanship of the Department of Medicine at Cook County Hospital, a position he held from June 1972 to January 1981. He intended to continue County’s tradition as a major teaching hospital while also serving as caregiver to the poor. He succeeded against considerable odds in recruiting technically superb and socially committed house staff while creating innovative occupational medicine training and service, extending the hospital’s outreach via community clinics, and providing improved care for Chicago’s prison population. He also faced budget shortfalls, unending tangles with political authorities, and the insult of being fired in 1975 for allegedly “abetting” the three-week strike of house staff. Quentin’s dismissal was overturned by a federal judge, and the house staff expressed their affection and loyalty. Still under attack, Quentin, attending physicians, house staff, and other hospital employees worked closely with Chicago community leaders on the Committee to Save Cook County Hospital. Major funding problems, private sector machinations to destabilize the public hospital, persistent efforts to downsize the house staff, and denial of union rights to hospital employees finally led Quentin to resign when he became convinced that

unless there is new support and remedy of these situations, it would not be possible for this wonderful and historic institution to continue its mission, offering health care to the hundreds of thousands of sick poor in this area.

Quentin then returned to private practice in Hyde Park and dedicated himself to new activities and causes. His primary commitment was to the Health and Medicine Policy Research Group (HMPRG), created to

respond to crises in the existing health system, crises deriving from decisions by national and local politicians that kill or slowly strangle the only agencies – public health departments, community health centers, public general hospitals – which have contributed to the achievements that have been made in life expectancy and infant mortality.

HMPRG would “expose the corporate beneficiaries of the existing system” and trace the “diversion of tax dollars away from public programs which directly delivered services to those who needed them most.”

Quentin was named chairman of HMPRG, whose agenda included Medicaid reform, occupational health and safety initiatives, prisoner health reform, infant mortality reduction campaigns, creation of freestanding birth centers, and support for Cook County Hospital. HMPRG grew into what many called the “most influential local citizen-run health advocacy group in the nation.”

Engaged in many other activities, Quentin regularly appeared on Chicago’s public radio station, WBEZ, and for decades, hosted his own show. Mayor Harold Washington, Chicago’s first African American mayor, appointed Quentin President of Chicago’s Board of Health. At the state level, Governor Pat Quinn appointed him chairman of the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board and “Health Advocate for the State.” Quentin achieved many national accolades. In 1998 he served as President of the American Public Health Association, and in 2007 was inducted as a Master of the American College of Physicians, and served as chair of its Subcommittee on Human Rights and Medical Practice.

Nationally, Quentin is most closely identified with single-payer health insurance. He was a founder of PNHP, launched in 1987. He served as PNHP’s national coordinator; the group’s administrative office moved to Chicago and shared space with HMPRG. With other PNHP leaders Quentin worked with members of Congress to craft and promote single-payer legislation. He worked closely with Congresspersons Dennis Kucinich, Barbara Lee, Dorris Christensen, and John Conyers; testified before the House Ways and Means Committee and frequently appeared on television. PNHP persuaded the US Conference of Mayors and 60 municipal and county governments to endorse HR 676, Representative Conyers’ single-payer bill. Chicago added particularly fitting language to its resolution of June 13, 2007:

[T]he Mayor and the members of the Chicago City Council . . . do hereby call upon the Illinois congressional delegation to support this bill and take all necessary steps to secure its passage in Congress; and . . . [t]hat a suitable copy of this resolution be presented to Dr. Quentin Young, National Coordinator of the Physicians for a National Health Program.

Quentin was clearly a Chicago hero and a national treasure.