INSURANCE ACT.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 107, 6 May 1912, Page 7

INSURANCE ACT.

NEW AND DRAMATIC TURN. ACTION BY MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. DOCTORS TO RESIGN APPOINTMENTS. By Telegraph.— Press Association.— Copyright. LONDON, 4th May. As a result of a speech made by Mr. Lloyd George, Chancellor of the Exchequer, in February last, and the threat mad© by Mr. C. F. G. Masterman, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, that, if necessary, the insurance scheme would be worked in England, as in Iroland, without medical benefits, further action has been taken by the committee of the British Medical Association. It has asked 26,000 doctors to sign an additional pledge simultaneously to resign all club, friendly society, dispensary, and other forms of contributory contract practice appointments throughout England, Scotland, and Wales unless their demands are granted. Also, except in' cases of urgent necessity,, they ai© not to render professional servicfl to people insured through any voluntary medical charity. Dr. Alfred Cox, secretary of the association, in explaining .this new and dramatic turn thus {given to the controversy, states that in the event of a strike of doctors those insured would have to make their own private arrangements for medical attendance. This would imply a breakdown of one of the most attractive feature* of the Insurance Act. [The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in his speech afc the Opera House, denounced the Unionist* inhumanity in counselling the doctors to strike. The Royal College of Physicians and Snrgeons' refusal to discuss the Act with the Government department wae an unparalleled example of rude ineptitude. If doctors refused work under the Act, eaid Mr. Lloyd George, they would be deprived of the safeguards it provided, inasmuch as the medical relief money would be handed to those- insured through benefit societies. Moreover </he Medical Institute's dispensaries would Multiply throughout the land.]