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Hokitika Guardian, 11 February 1938, Page 4

PItOBAHijY the <:l) id' objection to ‘‘socialised medicine,” or eompnlsory “heafth insurance',” which tlie Administration at Washington is applying to two brandies of the Government, is the fact that far from reducing sickness, wherever put into effect the system has increased it, says the Christian Science Monitor. Noted medical men have spoken of the dangers ot this scheme, including leaders of the profession in Great Britain, where Government ‘‘health fnsuranee” is in effect, Dr. Robert Hutchison, a consulting physician to two great London hospitals, has brought out the ‘‘startling fact that in Scotland more' than one out of every five insured persons is certified unfit for work at one time

or another during the year, and that the days of sickness amount on the average to ten per insured person.” Some of the present campaigns for compulsory blood tests, regular medical’ examination, and so-called “health education” in the United States arw recalled by Dr. Hutchison’s objections to “the attempt to produce vvliat is called health-consciousness in the community.” “It is sufficient to say,” lie is quoted by the British Medical Journal as declaring, “that while the amount of benefit to health to be produced by such means is problematical, the danger of creating numbers or hypochondriacs is real.”