4.) 
MAJORITY REPORT 
akin to medical benefit should be entrusted as far as possible to 
the bodies which are responsible for the administration of that 
benefit. 
CRITICISM OF THE ADDITIONAL BENEFIT SYSTEM. 
80. Many of the criticisms made on the provision of treat- 
ment benefits as additional benefits under the Act are directed 
to the fundamental characteristics of the system under which 
insured persons are grouped in Approved Societies. That subject 
is dealt with later in Chapters VIII and IX. Other criticisms 
are expressed on the following grounds. 
81. These benefits are not given by all Societies, and even 
among the societies giving them there is it is stated not merely 
no uniformity in the additional benefits given, but there is also 
a wide and undesirable variety in the treatment, services and 
appliances included, and in the arrangements for part payment 
by the recipients. In other words, there is neither unformity 
in the selection of benefits nor in the content of the same benefit 
as given by different societies with the result, it is said, that there 
1s widespread confusion in the minds of the members as to what 
precisely their rights are. Further, we are told that the 
arrangements made between societies and professional bodies are 
wanting in authority and uniformity, and in some cases are 
accompanied by undesirable conditions. 
Here we need only point out that the promotion of an 
additional benefit to the rank of a normal benefit would remove 
many of these features since in that event its administration, as 
in the case of medical benefit, would be placed in the hands of 
the Insurance Committees or their successors. 
We will now take the various additional benefits which are in 
intention of a medical nature and consider for each its present 
method of operation. 
DENTAL BENEFIT, 
82. For dental treatment as an additional benefit about 
£332,000 (including unspent balances carried forward from 
previous years) was available in England alone in the year 1924 
and nearly the whole of this amount was spent in that year. In 
some Societies the benefit included extractions and fillings but 
not dentures, in others the position was reversed. There was also 
great divergence in the proportions of the cost borne by the 
Society and the member respectively. Some Societies paid the 
whole cost, other half, others again even less. A very wide 
latitude was allowed under the first schemes to Societies in the 
arrangements made regarding the scope of the benefit, the scale 
of charges, the proportion payable and the agreements with 
selected groups of dentists.