| LR

i

MAJORITY REPORT.

involve the separation of administrative and financial responsibility,
 a result which could not, in our opinion, be defended. This
is a serious consideration and one involving more than a mere
change of method in the administration of the Health Insurance
system. We feel that it is to the public advantage that this
great Scheme should be administered by the representatives
of the insured persons themselves, and that the governing
bodies should have that full responsibility for the results of their
own activities without which it is as hopeless as it would be
unreasonable to look for a high standard of efficiency and vigilance.
 In this connexion we realise that there are features of
the system which must appear to many as defects, and that these
cannot be eradicated from it. On the other hand we cannot disregard
 the consideration that opinion as to faults and defects in
a Scheme of this kind is largely a matter of the individual standpoint,
 and that what amounts in the eyes of some to a flaw will
commend itself to others as an element of equity and justice.
Tt is clear that if effect is to be given to the views of one school
of thought, acute dissatisfaction will be aroused in the minds of
those who hold the contrary opinion and regard the present
machinery as equitable in its operation. We do not ourselves
think that the best interests either of the State or of the insured
population would be served by a vast amalgamation of all the
resources of the Scheme in a common fund administered from the
centre, and for the reason given we are satisfied that such an
amalgamation would create as much discontent as it would allay.
From this point of view, therefore, we have come to the conclusion
 that a system of self-governing bodies is to be preferred
and should be retained.

292. As to the other type of criticisms, the substantive plea
behind which is that the system of administration through the
Approved Societies is open to so many objections that some new
method of administration should be substituted for it, we have
to take note of the fact that the Approved Societies are in
possession of the field, by the action of Parliament, that they
have their organisations widely distributed over the whole of
the country and their staffs trained in the details of what, in
many respects, is an intricate piece of social administration.
The onus of showing that the system, either from causes
inherent in itself, or from personal shortcomings of those
by whom it is operated, works so imperfectly that it ought
to be abolished, rests upon those who take this view. We have
considered their evidence with care, and, we trust, without bias.
We have also reviewed the evidence given to us by the large
number of officials who have appeared before us as representing
the Societies, and we have studied their attitude of mind in
their relations with the insured person and their work generally
as revealed to us by the answers given to the many questions
which we have put to them. In the result we have come to the