IN 1952 the Joinit Committee on Medical Care of the American Public Health and Public Welfare Associations posed the thesis that the interests and practices of public health and public welfare were bringing the agencies concerned closer together(1). This was not a new thesis but a restatement that was especially timely in the light of the Social Security Act amendments of 1950(2, 3). These amendmenits made possible federally matched direct payments to the providers of medical care for certain needy persons and established the Federal-State program of aid to the permanently and totally disabled.