Evening star., 1936-12-20
INSURANCE HELD
SPUR TO ILLNESS
American Medical AsSocia:
ton Says 1t Also Fails to
Reduce Expense.

Inclusion of Federal health in
surnnce in the social security act
ts urged By the American Federa-
ton OF Labor, opposed by the
American Medical Association.
The second OF tho stories By the
Associated Press tells some OF the
medical protession's uieDs.
The American Medical Association
contends sickness insurance increases
illness among the poor, fails to re-
duce the cost Of treatment and tends
to build up a vast bureaucracy that
could stif1e the advance of medical
science.
Insurance. it says, it not the an
awer to the doctor-bill problem the
profession is trying to solve in other
and better ways.
THE increase in sickness among the
insured Gin nations that have an
insurance system) is due to deep in
herent evil Of insurance" the asSo-
citation says in bulletin.
prepayment for medical care, eS-
pecially over long period, creates
q desire to get something back in
the form of such care. This desire
to get something back has ten
dency to create the sickness that
is the condition of obtaining the COW
eted service.
Physicians practicing in the Ger
man system estimate that from 80
%1 nf he ad
are created or aggravated by this sit
uation.'
Saving Held Improved
No figures are available, the aSso-
citation says, to show that insurance
reduces the cost of medical care for
the poor. All obtainable information,
1t adds, leads experts to believe the
cost is as much or more with insur-
ance systems.
Neither the patients to be served
nor the physicians who are to do
the serving are calling for insurance,
says the medical bulletin.
The association attributes demands
for insurance to professional phllan-
thropists, social workers, employers
and politicians"-not to either the
workingman or the physician.
Insurance. it argues, inevitably is
followed by creation of sitting,
cumbersome bureaucracy that devel-
ops into a political machine.
Diagnosis Held Less Thorough.
Both diagnosis and treatment suf-
fer the association says, adding:
In every country having such
system, the administration of insur-
snce has developed into a powerful
political machine.
When benefits are distributed to
individuals through an extensive ad-
ministration machinery with many
employees, the whole scheme tends to
become a gigantic political machine.
This always has evil effects on the
quality of medical service.
Insurance almost inevitably leads
to overmedication (too much medi-
cine). 1t has become well nigh pro-
verbal that the diagnosis and treat
ment provided in insurance systems
consist of "a look and bottle"
Prescriptions Often Limited.
On the other hand, the association
says. insurance systems usually place
a limit on the cost of prescriptions,
thus often interfering with proper
treatment.
Physicians practicing under an in
surance system, it continues, are so
busy filling out government reports
that they find little time for much
needed study.
Nearly every problem raised by ad-
vocates of insurance, the bulletin con-
cludes, "can be attacked with prom
ise of greater progress through other
methods than insurance" adding this
word:
1T seems foolish to abandon the
application of these methods in
favor of a panacea that has failed
elsewhere to produce the results that
have been promised"