We need not anticipate that the
transitional stage of national insurance will endure as long as the
ancient astronomy. Professor Moore estimated that it would lead to a
completely national medical service in twenty-five years, and since the
introduction of that method he has, too optimistically, reduced the
period to ten years. We cannot reach simplicity at a bound; we must
first attempt to systematise the recognised and established activities
and adjust them harmoniously.
The organised refusal of the medical profession at the outset to carry
on, under the conditions offered, the part assigned to it in the great
National Insurance scheme opened out prospects not clearly realised by
the organisers. No doubt its immediate aspects were unfortunate. It not
only threatened to impede the working of a very complex machine, but it
dismayed many who were not prepared to see doctors apparently taking up
the position of the syndicalists, and arguing that a profession which
is essential to the national welfare need not be carried out on
national lines, but can be run exclusively by itself in its own
interests. Such an attitude, however, usefully served to make clear how
necessary it is becoming that the extension of medicine and hygiene in
the national life should be accompanied by a corresponding extension in
the national government. If we had had a Council of National Health, as
well as of National Defence, or a Board of Health as well as a Board of
Trade, a Minister of Health with a seat in the Cabinet, any scheme of
Insurance would have been framed from the outset in close consultation
with the profession which would have the duty of carrying it out.
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