It was four full decades ago- 1965- and the US Congress, under a full head of steam generated by President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty, passed legislation to deal with the plight of poor people throughout the land.

Any number of programs were initiated, a new federal agency, the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) was established, and the country got down to the task of improving the lives of millions of America's poor.

One of those programs spawned in the 1960s continues to live, indeed thrive; it is a program that recognized, in this country of great wealth, health care was not available in wide areas of the country, both rural and urban.

To address the need, the OEO agency and a program called "Model Cities" developed a model to create a network of primary health care facilities for persons in need. The first such centers opened their doors 40 years ago; one in a rural area down south, the other in a public housing project right here in Dorchester, at Columbia Point.

In fact, despite lack of success among some of the poverty programs, and the eventual dismantling of much of them by later adminsitrations, the community health centers have survived, indeed flourished all across this land.

Next Monday, community health center advocates will gather at the Kennedy Library for a symposium, designed to celebrate the historic achievements and make plans for the future. It is an anniversary to celebrate: 40 years after the first patients were treated at the Columbia Point Health Center (now called the Geiger Gibson Health Center, in tribute to those pioneering physicians who worked here,) the gathering takes place just a few blocks from the site of the nation's first city health center.

Alas today, after all those years, poverty is still with us, people continue to suffer- yet scores of under served people, millions of them really, have benefited from this visionary program. Let us reflect on how much human suffering has been avoided because those politicians from a previous generation had the resolve and the commitment to create and fund a program that would simply help people in need.

-Ed Forry

Tough decisions

Legislators are debating this week the merits of several conflicting proposals to deal with two perplexing issues: automobile insurance and personal health insurance. Proponents for one or another proposal are spending large amounts of money on ad campaigns that attack each other. Which is the most beneficial is too complicated to decipher, and competing interests, such as small business employers and young families, city drivers and suburban, all have compelling stakes in these debates.

But politics has been defined as the art of the compromise, and we trust the legislators will make their decisions based on what is best for working people in our neighborhoods. Let us hope that what emerges from these deliberations will be something that we can all live with. - E.F.