THE MIDDLE CLASSES AND MEDICAL • TREATMENT [To the Editor
of the SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—Not the least of the " woes of the middle classes " is the dread of expensive illness and of operations. Would it be practicable for the difficulty to be met by an informal mutual insurance scheme ? To put it in concrete form. Suppose that one or more of the great London hospitals (though there is no need to confine it to London) undertook to provide specialist treatment and any needed surgical aid, within its wards, to those who subscribed £5 a year for these benefits. I have no statistics to guide me, and my figures are merely illustrative. Suppose then that a hundred persons Subscribed £5 annually, making £500 in all. If of these hundred persons five required specialist attention, or operations, at an average cost to the hospital of £50 each, the nett results would be, one hundred persons relieved of a grave anxiety, five persons receiving needed care, and a balance of £250 for the hospital.
It might be found advisable to make the subscription considerably lower for those who joined in early life, and higher for those who joined in later life, as is the case with the Friendly Societies.—I am, Sir, &c., [Would the surgeons agree to yet more operations free of charge ? We commend the suggestion to the Hospitals where men like Lord Knutsford are always willing to consider innovations.—En. Spectator.]
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