Report of the Royal Commission on National Health Insurance

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 1740277147

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-132094

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Report of the Royal Commission on National Health Insurance

Place of publication:: London

Publisher:: Stationery Office

Year of publication:: 1926

Scope:: XII, 394 S.

Digitisation:: 2020

Collection:: Economics Books

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Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter VIII. The approved society system

Collection:: Economics Books

MAJORITY REPORT. J 3 members and their employers, and that any surplus disclosed on the periodical valuation of its assets and liabilities shall remain at the disposal of the Society to be used only in the provision of additional benefits for its own members, as those members shall determine. The institution of the Approved Society system was doubtless due to the fact that long before the provision of monetary aid for the worker in times of sickness and disable- ment, or of the necessary medical treatment for his restoration to health was accepted as a subject of public responsibility, the want had been met to a large extent by the provident efforts of the people themselves. These effects were expressed in the insti- tution of the Friendly Socities which existed in almost every part of the country and of the benefit side of the Trade Union move- ment which was almost equally widely distributed. The majority of these bodies were firmly established and well organised, and enjoyed in their operations the protection conferred by various Acts of Parliament. So considerably had these movements appealed to the wage-earning classes that at the time when the Act was passed they were estimated to include among their members about one-third of the total population to be brought within the scope of the National Scheme. It was evidently felt that the use of these existing agencies would be of the utmost assistance, in bringing the new Scheme into operation and in- deed that a Scheme which failed to build upon the foundation already laid by voluntary action of such a widespread character would have but little prospect of successful survival. 199. In a sense, therefore, it may be said that the adoption of the Approved Society system was not merely imposed on Parliament in 1911 as an essential condition of a workable scheme in the conditions of the time, but that it was justified by the necessity of retaining under a scheme imposed by the State the general features of a system of Insurance which had been evolved by the people themselves in their voluntary and unprompted efforts to meet their own requirements. NUMBERS, TYPES AND MEMBERSHIP OF SOCIETIES. 200. Approved Societies are of many different types, the chief being Friendly Societies (with or without branches), Trade Unions, Societies formed by Industrial Assurance Companies or Collecting Societies, and Employers’ Provident Funds for persons in the service of particular employers. 201. In the first draft of the Bill of 1911 a minimum member- ship of 10,000 insured persons was required as a condition of the approval of a Society, but this limit was abandoned before the Bill became law, and it was left open to any body of insured persons, however small in number, to apply to become an Approved Society. As a result, the number of Societies which secured approval at the commencement of the Scheme was very

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