Report of the Royal Commission on National Health Insurance

Bibliographic data

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

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter XII. Consideration of certain major problems

Collection:: Economics Books

154 MAJORITY REPORT. a 347. This consideration is in our opinion sufficient in itself to render impracticable for the present the suggested modification of the existing provision for maternity in the direction of providing for the maintenance of the mother and child ; and, taken in con- junction with what we have said above as to the provision of medical services during pregnancy and confinement forces us to the conclusion that for the present the existing arrangements for Maternity Benefit should in their general outline remain unchanged. SECTION B.—DENTAL BENEFIT 348. Dental benefit is, as we have pointed out in Chapter V, one of the most popular, if not the most popular, of the additional benefits, and as such it is available in some form or another to large numbers of insured persons. The membership of all the Societies and Branches in England which provide this additional benefit reaches a total of about 10,700,000. The desirability of making it a normal benefit under the Act, available under uniform conditions to the whole insured population, has been urged upon us from many quarters, and much evidence, a summary of which has already been given in Chapter V, has been submitted to us by responsible professional and lay witnesses. The advantages to general health and the consequent beneficial reactions upon the benefit funds have been specially pressed upon our notice. Nevertheless we do not propose to recommend that any substantial change in the present arrangements should be made in the near future. It is therefore desirable that we should examine this problem at some length to justify the conclusion we have arrived at in the face of so much evidence, 349. It is mainly the question of cost which has caused us difficulty in this matter and to that we will now turn. The evidence received from such Societies as have given Dental Benefit and from the professional bodies suggests that the cost of this benefit on a complete basis would be—in the initial period and before the accumulation of dental defects has been overtaken —in the neighbourhood of 5s. or 6s. per annum per insured person. (See, e.g., Hearts of Oak Benefit Society, Q. 3553-3558 ; Gordon, Q. Ti27; Joint Committee of Approved Societies, Q. 8725; National Insurance Beneficent Society, Q. 8828; British Dental Association, Q. 9246-9247; British Society of Dental Surgeons, Q. 9487, 9519-9521, 9566-9578; United Women's Insurance Society, App. XXIV, 38-39, 51; Q. 10,284, 10,287-10,291 ; Brock, Q. 23,939; Leishman, Q. 24,381-24,386.) In fact the Scottish Board of Health put the cost as high as 7s. 6d. per insured person per annum. In view of the heavy annual cost thus foreshadowed we have thought it well to invite the Ministry of Health to give us more precise indications not

Access restriction

Copyright

fullscreen: Report of the Royal Commission on National Health Insurance

Monograph

Chapter

Table of contents

Download

Monograph

Chapter

This page

Image fragment

Citation links

Citation recommendation