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. gc 3 evidence of Mr. Alban Gordon to the effect that ‘‘ the present Approved Society system is not suitable for administering any other form of insurance benefit, nor does it seem capable of being co-ordinated with any other system of administration.’’ (App. XII, 19) 216. We cannot say that criticisms of this kind commend themselves to our judgment. We have not been asked to con- sider the unification of social insurance, and while we cannot regard it as a practicable or desirable development merely because "50 many people now desire *’ it, we equally cannot assume, in the absence of evidence directed to the point, that if it were introduced, no place in its administration could be found for the Approved Societies. If there are grounds for concluding that the Approved Society system is well adapted to administer the benefits of National Health Insurance, it does not appear to us that the Societies should be dispossessed from this work because some other forms of organisation are better fitted to administer other branches of social activity. The assumption implied in these criticisms that one form of organisation could equally well administer these diverse schemes of social welfare, appears to us to take for granted much that should be investigated before an opinion is formed. 217. In this rapid survey of the main lines of criticism directed against the Approved Society system, room should perhaps be found for a passing reference to one suggested element of weakness arising from the conditions under which the Insurance Scheme came into being. We have already referred to the three main types of Approved Societies—the Friendly Societies, the Trade Unions, and the Societies formed by Industrial Assurance Com- panies. In essence, the criticism based on the diversity of bodies engaged in the work of Health Insurance is that each of these types of organisation approached the matter with a previous history, in which its affections had already been bestowed else- where. Health Insurance was added to other work already undertaken ; *“ Approved Society work was a supplementary and subsidiary activity ** (Cohen, App. LXXVI, 27). It is suggested that the growing absorption in the work of National Health Insur- ance has in no way effected a change of heart or undermined the earlier and deeper loyalty. ** Industrial Insurance Societies are much more concerned with canvassing for .burial insurance. - + . To the good Trade Union official what matters are questions of wages, hours, workers’ control and political repre- sentation > (Cohen, App. LXXVI, 27). In quoting Mr. Cohen’s examples we do not necessarily adopt them. THE INEQUALITIES OF BENEFIT. 218. The main criticism of the present system is, however, directed against the inequalities which it has produced in the

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