294. 
MAJORITY REPORT : RESERVATION. 
5. It 1s sometimes argued that money spent on health services 
will result in savings later, that, as one witness put it, it will 
yield dividends. In one sense this is obviously true so far as the 
individual is concerned, but at times the contention appears to 
involve an unwarrantable implication. By those who argue in 
favour of more extended expenditure on health services, it is 
sometimes suggested that this would in no wise diminish—but 
might on the contrary increase—the power of the country to bear 
the weight of its financial embarrassments ; that there is in any 
case a burden of ill-health and suffering to be borne, which is 
capable of being expressed in terms of money, and that the 
removal of this would have a favourable influence on the 
prosperity and the financial condition of the country. °° The 
burden, the ill-health, the loss in wage, the expenditure on 
medical service, these '’ we are told ‘‘ are already with us. 
Insurance is a device for shifting or transferring the financing 
of the burden.”” That health is financially an asset is undeniable, 
whether from the point of view of the individual or of the State. 
Nevertheless if it is suggested that expenditure on health services 
will render it an easier matter for the community to bear the 
financial burden resting upon it, the argument is, we think, 
specious. ~~ Expenditure on social services is not infrequently 
supported by reference to the economies which will elsewhere 
result ; it is difficult, viewing the matter retrospectively, to find 
instances where such hopes have been adequately realised. As 
our health services are at present organised, we see little to 
support the view that expenditure on health now would lead 
to a diminution of expenditure on health in the future. On the 
contrary, there are grounds for believing that expenditure on 
health, unless primarily directed to the removal of the causes of 
ill-health, may tend to occasion a further increase in such 
expenditure. These observations are not to be taken as implying 
that there is not a strong case for expenditure on health services, 
or even that a case might not be made out for regarding such 
expenditure as so urgent as to constitute the first call on the 
country’s resources. With that particular question we are not at 
the moment concerned. We merely desire to point out that the 
case for expenditure on health is not in fact furthered by what, 
we are convinced, is the fallacious suggestion that expenditure 
on health may indirectly help to rehabilitate the finances of the 
countrv. 
6. It is implicit in the contentions of many witnesses that 
all the medical resources of the country should be made available 
for every insured person, and obviously, in so far as it should 
prove to be practicable, the desirability of giving effect to such 
an ideal (which on general principles need not be restricted to 
medical resources nor to insured persons) would be denied by 
none. We are not discussing the argument for the widest 
possible extension of medical benefit or for the extension of other