HEALTH INSURANCE PLAN

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19398, 9 August 1937, Page 11

HEALTH INSURANCE PLAN

ANSWER TO CRITICISM STANDARD OF PRACTICE (Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, last night. [ "Dr Cashmore complains that the Government's health insurance scheme | will react to the detriment of the I standard of medical practice in New I Zealand," said Dr. D. G. McMillan, j M.P., chairman of the National Insur- j ance Committee, in an interview today, in reference to the address given to the Hastings Rotary Club on Friday j by Dr. R. Cashmore, chairman of ttie \ Hastings branch of the British Medfccal Association. "Dr. Cashmore's statement seems re | indicate that medical men are more* devoted to the fee than to Ihe science» of medicine and I cannot accept such * a low estimation of the medical pro- I fession in this country."

A Press Association message received from Hastings on Saturday stated: Though the medical profession favoured a health insurance scheme covering some sections of the community it did not approve of the system now proposed by the Government, and it saw no r.eason for taxing every member of the community to pay for such a scheme, said Dr. R. Cashmore, chairman of the Hastings branch of the British Medical Association in addressing the Hastings Rotary Club on Friday afternoon. Most doctors were against the, proposed scheme, he said,, and many would leave the country rather than work under it although they would get more money from it than they were now receiving. It was not any financial consideration which was influencing them. They were acting in the interests of the health of the country. Under the scheme the doctors would become too busy to give individual patients the attention they deserved,, and the elimination of competition would remove the incentive to studty and undertake constant research,