©2006 The Chestnut Hill Local

Barbara Plager memorialized; her ‘fearless’ legacy lives on
by LEN LEAR

Barbara Plager left a legacy that many in the health care field say will last for generations.

More than 200 relatives, friends and former co-workers showed up Saturday morning at the Plymouth Meeting Friends Meetinghouse, Germantown Pike and Butler Pike, to pay tribute to Barbara Plager, of West Mt. Airy, who died of ovarian cancer last November at 61 after two years of chemotherapy failed to halt the spread of the fatal disease.

Speaker after speaker, many fighting back tears, hailed Plager’s “fearless spirit,” “can-do attitude,” “generosity,” “dignity” and selfless efforts for decades to secure health care for poor and disadvantaged residents of inner-city Philadelphia. A native of Ottumwa, Iowa, the regal, silver-haired activist moved to Philadelphia in 1970 and became executive director of the Women’s Medical Services Center from 1972 to 1974.

“She then established a pattern that would repeat itself throughout her professional life,” according to her husband of 29 years, Dr. Stephen Unger, who has had a dental practice for many years in Chestnut Hill. “She would leave an established socially worthwhile position that she had built to take on a high-risk, important endeavor on the cutting edge of health care.

“When the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision made abortion services legally available, she quit her job and established with a few others the Elizabeth Blackwell Health Center for Women. She was its first director and put her professional and personal life at risk for what she believed. It’s easy to forget when major hospitals now routinely perform abortions that in 1974 Elizabeth Blackwell was the first abortion service in Pennsylvania. I remember the threats of violence she received over the phone.”

From 1974 to 1984 Plager was director of programs for the Family Planning Council of Southeastern Pennsylvania. During her tenure, the number of patients served almost doubled (from 48,000 to 90,000), and she added cancer screening and infertility services to those already being provided.

Later she started Health Partners of Philadelphia, an HMO for low-income people, when there were no other operating medical assistance HMOs in the country. At the time low-income city residents generally went to hospital emergency rooms for routine health care services, thus overburdening emergency rooms beyond their capacity to treat the true emergency patients they were intended to serve.

Plager started Health Partners with just one secretary and eventually made it into a hugely successful health care plan with 125,000 beneficiaries, more than 500 employees and $250 million in revenue. In 1997 then-President Clinton presented her with an award from the American Hospital Association for making Health Partners “a model of community partnership to increase access to quality health services.”

Barbara, whose two children, Clayton and Rosie, attended Plymouth Meeting Friends School, also co-chaired the fundraising campaign for the school. It was so successful that the school was able to construct the Steinbright Building, which contains a gymnasium, art studio and 300-seat theater. She was also on the board of many other area non-profit health care organizations.

At the 90-minute memorial service Saturday, Plager was lionized repeatedly by a legion of those who knew her well. Here is a representative sampling of the comments:

•“Her spirit never wavered. She was always there to encourage others, even when she was very sick. She possessed a great combination of pragmatism and optimism. Her generous spirit brought out the best in people.”

•“Once I told my husband that I needed to speak to someone who was wiser than me, but I could not think of anyone who was. He said, ‘Barbara Plager is.’”

•“Barbara built organizations for women, children, anyone in need, so that they would be strong enough to endure after she was gone. Her image will always be ‘Barbara the builder.’ We owe it to her to keep going.”

•“Her idea of a vacation was camping in the Adirondacks in the dead of winter.”

•“She got me my first internship and helped me to figure our what to do with my life when I didn’t even know what I wanted. Even when she was sick and on chemotherapy, she was still helping me with decisions in my life.”

•“Barbara found something in me that I didn’t know I had myself. I can’t tell you how many non-profits are alive in Philadelphia today because of her. Barbara’s legacy will live on for generations. She allowed us to be so creative. I was her employee, but I have now had my own business for nine years, and I could not have possibly done it without her encouragement and assistance.”

According to her husband, “Barbara was most happy at home in her perennial garden, and her absence is very poignant this spring. Our two children, myself, her brother and sister and a large circle of friends whose bonds of love and loyalty are unmatched miss her dearly. I know I can speak for all of us when I say that her presence has changed our lives.”