HEALTH INSURANCE

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 173, 9 August 1937, Page 4

HEALTH INSURANCE

Labour's Medical Expert Answers Dr. C ashmore STATEMENT AND REPLY On Saturday there appeared in most of the New Zealand newspapers a PresS Association message from Hastings briefly summari^ing Dr. Cashmore's ad» dress to the Hastings Rotary Club on health insuranbi. Tb-day there is pub* lished Dr. D. G, McMillan'e feply to Dr, Cashmere, Dr. McMillan is Jjabout M.P. for Dunedin West and is chairman of the National HeMth Insurance Committee. How relevant Dr. McMillan 's coinment is to Dr. Cashmore's contentioa can be judged by those interested. The original message and the reply are published below: Dr. Cashmore HASTINGS, Friday. Though the medical profession fayoured a health insurance scheme covering some sections o£ ihe community, it did not approve the system no.w pro-i posed by the Government> and it saW no reason for taxing every member of the community to pay for such a scheme, said Dr. R. Cashmore, chaity tnan of the Hastings branch of the British Medical Association, in addressing the Hastings Rotary Club. Most doctors were against the proposed scheme, he said, and many Would leave the country rather than work under it, although they wogld get moro money from it than they now wero receiving, It was ndt any flnancitU. consideration which was infiuencing them. They were acting in the interests of the health of the country, Under the scheme doctors would bpcome too busy to give individual patients tHe attention they deserved and the elimination of competition would remove the incentive to Study and unaertake constant research. " The Government was a beginning by socialising doctor^ said Dr. Cashmore, because they wero the smallest body in the country and their votes counted, for iiothing. A Dr. McMillan . . .WELLINGTON, Sunday. "In hi* address to the Hastings Rotary Club, Dr. Cashmore cqmpiained that the Government 'b health insurance scheme will react to. the detriment of the staudard, of medical practice in New Zealand," saxd Dr, D. G. McMillan, M.P., who is chairman of the National Health Insuraiice Committee, ia a statement yesterday, rIt may be oi jnterest to draw hisattention to a repiy to such criticism made by our siaier-organieation, the Canadian branch of the British Medical Association, in the supplement te the Canadian Medical JournaL September, 1934, " "They say: 'TEis criticism' (that health insurance destfoys initiative and progress of ihe medical practitidner), 'is commohly made by doctors who seem to believe that 12 a doctor's is assured through salary or in some other way, there fcllows a Jack *t>£ interest - and spur to work which is present under individual eompstitive. practice. Such an attitude ignores the contributions made by the permanent army and navy medical corps, the work of university persomiel, who are often on aalary, and the activities of salaried public health offlcials. It would perhaps be more fair to say that the good man works frell provided his conditions of work mrs reasonably satisfactoryt without regard to the manner in which he is remunerated.' "Dr. Cashmore's Statement seems to indicata that medical men, are more devoted to the fee than to the science of medicine. I cannot accept such a low estimation of the medical profession in this country,' * said Dr, McMillan,