HEALTH SCHEME

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23060, 10 June 1938, Page 13

HEALTH SCHEME

MEDICAL MAN'S .VIEWS GOVERNMENT AND DOCTORS GRAVE DISAGREEMENT FEARED [BY TELEGRAPH —PRKRS ASSOCIATION] DUXEDIN, Thursday Several aspects of the Government's proposed health insurance scheme were criticised by Dr. W. Newlands in an address to tlie conference of the provincial executive of the Women's Division of the New Zealand Farmers' Union. He compared the Government's scheme with the proposals put forward by the medical profession, which, ho said, had made suggestions indicating the limit to which the Medical Association was prepared to go. He' nlso added a warning that the scheme was likely to result in an added burden to ratepayers through having to provide a great deal of money necessary for free hospital beds, as well as paying their contributions toward the scheme itself. Two Great Questions

"Wo have been told a great deal," Dr. Newlands said, "about the financial benefits of 'social security,' as it has now come to be designated. Two great questions —what is financially sound, and what is reasonable sufficiency without offering a premium to idleness and parasitism?—may be left to politicians and financiers to consider, in conjunction with other demands upon the public purse, especially defence requirements, which are looming large at present. We are still waiting, however, for important details concerning the actual health scheme, although .we know the proposal in outline." Dr. Newlands said the present provision in New Zealand was such that there was no need for haste, and ample time should be given to consider the numerous important details, on the determination of which the success of any scheme would largely depend. Mr. Lloyd George's English scheme as originally introduced was an outstanding example of what to avoid. It had been tinkered with unceasingly for over 20 years, and at the present moment the British Medical Association was actively pushing a scheme of its own that appeared to bo truly national and practical.

In New Zealand there existed a strong probability of grave disagreement between the Government and tho medical profession on many points, but it was hoped that the evidence of the profession's representatives before the Nordmeyer Committee last April had resulted in drastic amendment to the Government's proposals. "A health scheme cannot work satisfactorily unless the medical profession finds it tolerable and in harmony with its traditions of service," Dr. Newlands stated, "and in the willing co-operation of free individuals for the common weal lies the only solution of the problem of realising tHe latent possibilities in human life."