MEDICAL SERVICE ENQUIRY.
Although enormous sums have been expended by public benefactors in providing hospitals and medical services in the United States to supplement provisions made by public authorities, the facilities have failed to keep pace with the demands upon them. The United States' annual bill for sick- ness, It is estimated, amounts to nearly three thousand million dollars, while the total cost, when loss of wages and reduction in productive power are included, is three or four times that sum. Experts who have been investigating this subject recently believe that the amount of sickness. might be materially reduced if more adequate preventive services could be provided for people of moderate means. It is the Middle.- classes who suffer most from sickness, at present, owing to their reluctance to incur the comparatively high cost of private treatment, or to avail themselves of free services in public institutions. We have no shOitage of Well-traineil &dais and nurses, but the need is pressing for a redistribu- tion of medical services in such away as to make up-to-date medical care available to all who need it, and at a cost they can afford. A committee of which Seeretary Wilbur is chairman is studying this subject with a view to finding 'practicable solutions. His statement that " many millions are not receiving adequate,, up-to-date medical' attention'? wheit they are in need of it has caused considerable- public interest and concern.
New York, Wednesday, July 17th, 1929. IVY LEE.
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