MEDICAL BENEFITS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23830, 4 December 1940, Page 8

MEDICAL BENEFITS

What measure of medical benefits will accrue to the people from the provision proposed by the Government in the Finance Bill must await proof by the operation of the scheme. This is not the free, universal, medical practitioner scheme that the people were led to expect in 103S and for which (hey have been taxed since April 1, 1930. 11 ow universal or particular it may prove to be will depend on (he success of patients in concluding voluntary agreements with doctors, or of doctors with patients. Patients may not be able to contract with the doctors they prefer and not be willing to change to those doctors accepting "panel practice." On the other hand doctors may be loth to tie themselves up to patients whose demands might become unreasonable, especially when they note that contracts can only be terminated by the Minister on the recommendation of a special tribunal, and not otherwise. The contract between doctor and patient becomes as binding as marriage, with the Minister the sole judge on causes of divorce. Doctors may be chary of accepting such rigid commitments, and the more so at present with one out of four in military service, a proportion likely to increase. Doctors already working under the added pressure may hesitate to accept newcommitments whose extent and demands have yet to be discovered by experience. In fact the Government could scarcely have chosen a worse time to institute this version of medical insurance. Doctors may well find themselves too busy, and the Government should be too busy, to inaugurate a new scheme that is bound to involve much administrative work and detail. The result may be a very partial and limited application of medical insurance, with permanent prejudice to the principle. And even now the Government is not offering the free medicine service it led the people to expect.