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 X. Proposals for extending medical benefit

Collection:: Economics Books

1%6 ~~ MAJORITY REPORT, 265. In illustration of the way in which the small contributions of the people—insured and non-insured alike—are applied towards securing hospital treatment, we may refer to the statement submitted by the Hospital Saving Association (App. CXXX). It is there explained that for a contribution of threepence a week a large number of hospitals have agreed to relieve from any enquiry as to means, the contributor or his dependants when admitted to the hospital ; and this arrangement applies equally to in- and out-patients. If the patient is treated at a hospital not on the list of the Association the contributor is reimbursed, by the Association, any normal payments which he has been called upon to make towards his maintenance for a period not exceeding ten weeks. These arrangements, which we think are in them- selves wholly commendable, make apparently no distinction between the insured and the uninsured, and accordingly we are reinforced in our view that the claim of the hospitals to assistance from Health Insurance funds is not valid under present con- ditions and can never be so until an appropriate preference is given to insured persons either financially or by way of priority in treatment or in some other manner that definitely recognises the dual position which in such matters they clearly occupy. 266. In this connexion one further point should be noted. We have referred in Chapter V to the difficult position that would arise if, for example, hospital in-patient treatment were provided for the insured while the classes of persons just above the insurable level, to whom the cost of a major operation is a severe and often crippling burden, were given no assistance from public funds. If we were recommending as part of the extended medical benefit, the inclusion of such services either in the home or in the hospital, we should feel seriously concerned about the position of non-insured persons of moderate means. Under these circumstances, indeed, we are sure that an attempt would have to be made to find some way of making a similar benefit available to this class. We are convinced that this problem must ultimately be faced and that no large and unified scheme of health services will be entirely satisfactory unless it provides a solution. Within the limits of our present proposal, however, the difficulty does not assume the grave form which it would indubitably present if it were suggested that hospital treatment and major operations should be included within the scope of medical benefit. MATERNITY AND DENTAL SERVICES. 267. Nor have we included maternity services and dental treat- ment, though these also, we hope, would find their place in any full Public Health Service of the future. In Chapter XII we deal at some length with these problems in their immediate aspects, and in particular make an important recommendation for improving the dental service given under the additional benefit

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