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'FREE MEDICINE'
In a no less curious than
voluminous appendix to his
policy speech, issued a little
more than two months ago,
Mr. Chifley, then Prime Minis-
ter, had this to say about the
outcome of the High Court's
refusal to assent to the con-
scription of the medical pro-
fession: —
'All members of the public
are now dependent for the free
supply of penicillin, the sulpha
drugs, insulin, liver extract,
biological products, tablets, and
many kinds of important medi-
caments, on the goodwill of
their doctors. Use of the forms
and the formulary is the only
system that will enable the
scheme to function without em-
barrassment to patients, to
chemists, and to efficient and
economical administration.'
In short, being a rabid
Socialist, Mr. Chifley took it
for granted that his proposed
'use of the forms and the
formulary,' under a won-
drously complicated system of
bureaucratic control, was a
piece of enlightened states-
manship for which no effec-
tive substitute could ever be
found.
The new Federal Minister
for Health (Sir Earle Page),
after relatively brief discus-
sions with the Federal Council
of the British Medical Asso-
ciation and the Federal Exe-
cutive of the Pharmaceu-
tical Guild, has sensationally
exploded the fallacy that there
is no road to better public
health and an improved medi-
cal service except through
Socialism. Under a wholly
new- plan for which the ap-
proval of the Menzies Gov-
ernment is to be sought, it is
proposed to supply free, on
the mere authority of a doc-
tor's prescription — and very
emphatically without the 'use
of the forms and the formu-
lary' — a wide variety of life-
giving drugs that seems to in-
clude all the more important
of the 'medicaments' so re-
cently listed by Mr. Chifley.
The proof that reasonable-
ness and co-operation are bet-
ter than Socialistic ranting and
coercion, could hardly be more
conclusive. It is true, of
course, that Sir Earle Page is
a firm believer in the principle
of helping those that help
themselves. The Government
of which he is a member, in-
tends, so far as possible, to
develop a public health
scheme or schemes that will
give full scope to the invalu-
able activities of the friendly
societies and other voluntary
organisations having similar or
allied aims. 'Something for
nothing' will no longer be the
only ideal.
Socialism's 'something for
nothing' is founded on a most
mischievous illusion. It can-
not be insisted too vehemently
or too often that no Govern-
ment has anything of its own
to give away. Mr. Chifley's
'free medicine' would itself
have cost millions; and, added
to this first cost, there would
have been a tremendous ex-
penditure of public money on
the bureaucratic machine
charged with the manipulation
of 'the forms and the for-
mulary.' No one pretends
that the 'free medicine' pro-
posed to be provided under
the Earle Page scheme will be
wholly free, in the sense that
the taxpayer will not have to
pay for it, sooner or later. But
it will be infinitely less costly
than under Socialistic man-
agement.
The prodigious over-all cost
of the drugs, glasses, dentures
and wigs distributed with such
a lavish hand in Britain in re-
cent years, has staggered even
the Socialists themselves; and
every bottle of Bevan's 'free
medicine' is now priced at
one shilling, to induce the
patient to wonder whether he
really wants it. After all,
helping those who will not
even think for themselves, is
a thankless and demoralising
business.
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