A LOSING CRUSADE

Evening Star, Issue 25750, 25 March 1946, Page 6

A LOSING CRUSADE

B.M.A. AND HEALTH BILL ALL REASONABLE OBJECTIONS MET LONDON, March 23. The ' Lancet,' referring to the National Health Bill, says: " It is easy to be too much afraid. We should ask ourselves whether, with all its risks, the contemplated service does not give us great opportunities.- It is a great en d—that whatever person can benefit from medical knowledge and skill shall have it without hindrance. The means now proposed to that end may need modification, but they do not call for wholesale condemnation or irreconcilable opposition. The Bill is not the Socialist doctrinaire proposal that seemed inevitable."

Dr Stephen Taylor, M.P., who was director of the Ministry of Information's war-time social survey, in an article in the ' Daily Herald,' claims that the doctors' " crusade" has already collapsed. " Even the B.M A. can only quibble about details, though for a month it has been preparing the medical profession to fight the socialisation to medicine to the last ditch," he said. " There are two reasons why the campaign is fizzling out—first, it is largely bluff; secondly, Mr Bevan has met every reasonable objection which the doctors raised."