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. 105 Eee Ee —— considerable difficulties in making the necessary arrangements for treatment benefits, and, as a result, different standards of benefit are being granted by different Societies throughout the country. Few Societies are entirely local, and, as most may have members anywhere, the provision of treatment services implies an obliga- tion to provide the treatment in areas where the Society not infrequently has not got adequate machinery for the task. The. marked increase in the amount of money devoted to treatment benefits is accentuating the necessity for the administration of these benefits being co-ordinated through one local committee in each area.” (Kinnear, Q. 23,543.) 228. We recognise that so long as any particular forms of treat-. ment are provided only as additional benefits by certain Societies. which elect to give them, and so long as different Societies allocate. widely different amounts per head of membership for the provi- sion of any benefit, the administration must remain in the hands. of the Societies, at any rate, in so far as the consideration of claims for benefit is concerned. For, under these conditions, it will be clear that there will be a varying standard as between Societies, not merely so far as concerns the scale on which they may be able to assist their members, but also in regard to the scope of the treatment in respect of which help may be granted. On the other hand, if it should be possible to eliminate completely such divergences by taking any treatment benefit out of the category of additional benefits and transforming it into a statutory benefit, the whole of the administration would, of course, pass from the hands of the Societies into those of the local bodies responsible for the administration of medical benefit. In the. circumstances that confront us this is a matter for the future, but we think that even under present conditions where a treat- ment benefit (e.g., dental benefit), is provided only as an addi- tional benefit, but has nevertheless in fact been so widely adopted that it has been made available for a large proportion of all the. insured persons in every part of the country, it would be an advantage that the negotiations with the profession by whom the service is to be provided, so far as regards the terms and condi. ticns of service, should, as in the case of the medical service, be undertaken by the Central Government Departments, Further, we think that the supervision of the service should rest with those Departments either directly or through the agency of the local bodies responsible for the administration of medical benefit. Such an advance to uniformity would, we think, further imply that a greater attempt should be made than in the past to secure that the same benefit shall have a more or less uniform content as between different Societies. Minimum MEMBERSHIP OF APPROVED SOCIETIES. 229. We have received in evidence various suggestions as to the desirability of requiring a minimum membership as a condition

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