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

44 MAJORITY REPORT. much greater than had originally been contemplated, and included many with a very small membership. In England alone over 2,200 separate Societies had been approved within six months of the commencement of the Scheme. 202. While the fullest use was attempted to be made of the bodies already in the field when the Act was passed, a short experience proved that in many cases, especially among the smaller Societies, the purpose would be defeated by a certain lack of adaptability on the part of some among those who would thus be brought into the work of administration under the national system. Though much was done to ease the situation by utilising existing methods, the new machinery was different in certain essential matters from that to which the officers of the Societies were accustomed. Contributions were not, for instance, paid in cash to the Society and applied directly to the benefit needs of the members. They were paid by employers through the medium of stamps and passed from the Post Office to the coffers of the Departments, the Societies afterwards clainm- ing their ‘‘ credits * in the departmental books on the vouchers represented by their members’ contribution cards. It followed that to place the Societies in a position to pay the benefits, funds had to be issued to them at stated intervals by the Depart- ments. This procedure, with its accounting requirements, though not in itself involving any particular difficulty, proved to be irksome to many, while the need to conform to the standard of precision and promptitude entailed by the requirements of an Act of Parliament was equally burdensome. The result was that among the smaller Societies many officials decided that the task of administering National Health Insurance was beyond their powers, and as it was impossible to replace a considerable proportion of them from among their fellows, transfer of engage- ments, on a considerable scale, resulted. Mainly for this reason there has, from the first, been a continuous and considerable decrease in the number of Societies remaining approved. In England alone, out of 2,208 which had been granted approval no fewer than 1,192 had ceased to administer the Act by the end of 1923. At the present time the number of Approved Societies is 886 in England, 94 in Scotland, and 40 in Wales. Of these 31 are Societies with branches, the total number of tranches for the purposes of National Health Insurance being 6,887. The actual number of * units” administering the system is thus 7,876. 203. The membership of Approved Societies varies within the widest limits from less than 50 to more than 2,000,000. In England there are still at one end of the scale 70 Societies with less than 100 members, and at the other end there are 24 Societies with a membership of over 50,000 includ- ing two with over a million members in each. We were informed

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