Insurance rejected

Press, 7 September 1982, Page 6

Insurance rejected

PA Auckland A proposal for less affluent families to be provided with State-funded medical insurance was rejected by the Minister of Health, Mr Malcolm, last evening. Mr Malcolm told a meeting of Auckland doctors that any such scheme would increase the cost of health care to the nation. The present' system of health care was more equitable than those of countries in which insurance schemes dominated the health system, he said. ■ A State medical insurance scheme was advocated yesterday by an executive member of the Auckland division of the New Zealand Medical' Association. Dr Michael Cooper, a Howick general practitioner. He told, a meeting of the Auckland Clinical Society, attended by Mr Malcolm, that underprivileged people were over-represented in pubic hospital beds and outpatient -lists because inflation . had .eroded the subsidy to general ’practitioners. ’ ; • ’■ A .System of State medical insurance,’ be believed, would more than repay its cost with . savings ' in hospital grants. “If a million of our poorest families'with dependent children were insured at the current premium of $4O a year, it would cost the country $4O million. That $4O milion would amount to 2.2 per cent of the present health vote if the State was

to pick up the tab in total,” he said. In reply, Mr Malcolm said that the system had increased the cost of health care in Australia. Doctors in Australia had “ripped off" health funds to the tune of $lOO million, he said. The figure was pro-

duced by the Australian Medical Association itself. Countries such as Australia and the United States where insurance dominated the health system, he said, spent a greater proportion of their G.N.P. on health and had less equitable services than New Zealand.