At the annual session of the American Hospital Association recently held in Dallas, Texas, the following memorandum was prepared by the board of trustees of that organization and submitted to its house of delegates, which approved both the preamble and the conclusions.
Concerning the Principles of Relationship Between Approved Hospital Service Associations and the Medical Profession in Proposals to Provide Medical Service on an Insurance Basis to Hospital Patients of Limited Income
With more than 2,000,000 subscribers enrolled, and with membership increasing at the rate of more than one million per year, hospital service plans approved by the American Hospital Association are not only helping patients to pay their hospital bills, but are also contributing indirectly to the preservation of private medical practice in hospitals.
The prevalent restriction of these plans to semiprivate hospital service, and the omission of any provision for physicians' fees in hospital cases, have placed non-profit