■^°Ma^Y92o:}       Employee  Insurance  Conditions.  333 
is  quite  another.  Voluntary  insurance  can  be  economically  handled. 
It  will  be  subject  to  the  laws  of  competition.  It  can  be  purchased 
by  each  manufacturer  to  suit  his  own  particular  requirements, 
and  used  by  him  just  as  long  as  he  finds  it  beneficial.  Compulsory 
health  insurance,  on  the  other  hand,  drags  a  long  train  of  evils 
behind  it.  It  involves  an  expensive  and  inefficient  organization. 
It  means  incompetent  and  underpaid  medical  service.  It  means 
cheap  drugs.  More  than  anything  else  it  means  compulsion — and 
compulsion  is  repugnant  to  the  free  spirit  of  America.  Compulsory 
health  insurance  has  never  yet,  in  any  country  where  it  has  been 
adopted,  worked  out  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  impartial  student, 
but  voluntary  insurance  may  well  be  contrived  which  will  meet  the 
situation  as  far  as  it  ought  to  be  met. 
Just  how  far,  however,  efforts  to  establish  voluntary  health 
insurance  will  head  off  the  movement  for  compulsory  health  in- 
surance remains  to  be  seen.  The  latter  is  being  pushed  with  an 
astonishing  amount  of  vigor.  It  is  apparently  gaining  strength 
year  by  year.  Fortunately,  however,  the  opposition  is  likewise 
gaining  strength,  and  it  may  be  safely  predicted  that  the  battle  will 
be  waged  more  or  less  fiercely  for  a  number  of  years  to  come.  We 
must  all  of  us  be  on  our  guard  in  order  to  head  off  a  German-made 
propaganda  which  would  do  infinite  harm  to  America  if  it  ever 
gained  a  foothold  on  our  soil. 
A  SURVEY  OF  EMPLOYEE  INSURANCE  CONDITIONS 
AMONG  MEMBERS  OF  THE  AMERICAN  DRUG 
MANUFACTURERS'  ASSOCIATION. 
By  H.  a.  B.  Dunning. 
Thirty-two  of  the  fifty-six  members  of  the  American  Drug 
Manufacturers'  Association  answered  our  questionnaire  in  reference 
to  their  policy  relative  to  the  protection  of  their  employees  agaiUvSt 
loss  of  income  through  sickness,  ill  health  or  misfortune. 
Twenty-seven  members  stated  that  they  had  no  form  of  in- 
surance for  their  employees  against  loss  of  income  through  sickness, 
ill  health  or  misfortune.  Five  companies  have  some  sort  of  pro- 
tection, either  for  the  employees  or  among  the  employees,  only  one, 
however,  having  anything  that  approximates  a  mutual  relationship. 
In  this  instance,  one  of  the  plants  of  the  company  has  group  in- 
