THE DOCTORS AND THE NATIONAL INSURANCE ACT.
[To THE EDITOR OP TUE " SPECTATOR." J SIE,—The letter appearing in last week's Spectator above the signature of Lord Heneage contains a passing reference to the relations of the medical profession to the Insurance Act, so worded as to represent their exact legal position in an in- correct aspect Your correspondent expresses the belief that "there is a very general sympathy with the members of the profession in the towns as well as in the country districts who" (he infers) "will be required to work under the Insur- ance Act as it may be interpreted by the Commissioners." The words I have italicized convey a wrong impression of the legal situation. There is nothing in the Act legally binding any practitioner to serve under its provisions, and it is daily becoming more certain that few, if indeed any, of the profession will be found willing to do so. For the Act would perpetuate contract practice in its worst form and make it compulsory. It would rob the private practitioner of half his patients and as them iuto clubs. It would destroy the saleable value of medical practices and at a stroke annul the life-work of many struggling bread- winners, with no offer of compensation except such as might be obtained after troublesome legal process. Finally, it would place those foolish enough to give medical service under the penal jurisdiction of a lay commission in all matters of complaint as to professional conduct without appeal (as the Chancellor so emphatically stated in the House of Commons on August 2nd) either to the Courts or to the General Medical Council! It is therefore not surprising that medical prac- titioners with their eyes now fully opened have by a great majority condemned the Act both on public) and professional grounds, and when the time comes for Mr. Lloyd George to provide the insured with the promised medical benefits he will probably find the much-vaunted "choice of doctor" more
limited than some of his admiring followers have been leading the public to expect —I am, Sir, &a., H. B. G.
[Our correspondent has, we feel sure, mistaken Lord Heneage's meaning. What we understood him to say, and what he no doubt intended to say, was that if the doctors consented to work under the Act they would be "required, &o."—ED. Spectator.]
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