316 
MINORITY REPORT. 
82. Again, we agree with the recommendations to extend the 
content of medical benefit by the inclusion of specialist and con- 
sultant services, but we cannot agree to the cost being met solely 
from insurance funds. The need for extension along these lines 
was realised in 1914, and Parliament voted moneys for the 
purpose. We submit that these services should also be met under 
the provisions of Section 85 of the Act of 1924. The estimated 
cost of the proposed extension is £1} million a year. 
83. We have recommended that medical benefit should include 
attendance at confinement. We shall refer to the maternity 
service later and it will suffice at this point to say that we see no 
season why the cost of this service should not be met from 
insurance funds. 
84. We agree with our colleagues as to the need for dental 
services and as to the ultimate beneficial effect upon benefit 
expenditure, but we view with alarm the decision of our 
colleagues not to include dental benefit as a part of the medical 
benefit, especially when it is predicted that the aggregate surplus 
at the second valuation will amount to 40 to 45 million pounds, 
and that 3,485 Societies and branches in England with a member- 
ship of 10,700,000 insured persons ‘* provided some form of dental 
treatment and this number will certainly be increased when all 
the schemes under the second valuation become effective.” 
85. In our opinion there are several grave objections against 
allowing the present method to continue. =~ We have already 
submitted that it could not have been foreseen by Parliament 
that there would be a surplus over the whole insured population 
sufficient to provide benefits ‘ in the nature of medical benefit * 
for nearly the whole insured population, otherwise such benefits 
would have been provided as normal benefits and not as additional 
benefits. In any case we submit that Parliament should consider 
the position in the light of experience gained since 1911. 
86. A further, and we feel, a fundamental objection to leaving 
the matter where it is, to be found in para. 81 of the 
Majority Report. ‘ There is neither uniformity in the selection 
of benefits nor in the content of the same benefit as given by 
different Societies, with the result that there is widespread con- 
fusion in the minds of the members as to what precisely their 
rights are,” and again, a witness from the Department considers 
“that the administration of additional benefits in the nature of 
treatment by Approved Societies can never be very satisfactory.” 
(Brock, Q. 23,996.) 
87. Another objection is that in some of the smaller Approved 
Societies ¢¢ the sum available each year (for additional treatment 
benefits) . . . would not exceed a few pounds, the whole of 
which might be exhausted in the first two or three claims for 
benefit which had to be dealt with.’ (para. 213.)