Health Insurance Doctor, Armstrong Barbara Nachtrieb

Violent debate of socialized medicine and health insurance in the United States is punctuated regularly by emotional appeals to the experience of other countries. Look at England, cries one of the disputants. Ah But look at Denmark and France, retorts his opponent. Actually, few Americans have more than the most casual knowledge of the health insurance schemes which have been adopted abroad. Never before has it been possible to obtain in English a complete and objective statement of the work of the Health Insurance Doctor in these three democracies. What is the average income of a doctor under one of these plans? What are the precise rates for services? What office hours? Does a political bureaucracy control medical practice? How many patients may a practitioner carry? What are the rules about free prescription of drugs? How much paper work and reporting is required of the doctor? What is the relation between health insurance and relief? And-most important-what do the doctors themselves think of the idea? All of these and hundreds of other vital questions are answered fully, dispassionately, and with amazing clarity in The Health Insurance Doctor. The author is professor of law at the University of California and master of a straightforward style which presents vividly the issues of health insurance confronting a modern democracy. No legislator, welfare worker, medical practitioner, hospital executive, relief administrator, or interested layman can afford to miss this remarkable book.

Originally published in 1939.