RECENT BRITISH HEALTH INSURANCE COSTS
The Fifteenth Annual Report of the Ministry of Health of Great Britain, covering the fiscal years 1933 and 1934, supplies some interesting facts concerning the workings of the British health insurance system."The number of insured persons entitled to medical benefits was approximately 15,150,000." There were 15,500 doctors in insurance practice. About 10,000 druggists supplied medicines and appliances. The total cost of medical benefit was £8,420,000 ($42,100,000).1 These figures show that the average expenditure for medical relief was $2.77 per person annually.The physicians received, for attending and treating insured persons, £6,077,000 ($30,385,000). According to these figures, insurance physicians received close to $2 per person annually.In spite of all the restrictions and denunciations of over-medication, the report says:"There was an increase of nearly 6 per cent in the number of insurance prescriptions dispensed in 1933 as compared with 1932, the numbers rising