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 XII. Consideration of certain major problems

Collection:: Economics Books

MAJORITY REPORT. by the workmen's wage, has in effect the same influence 1n reducing his standard of living as similar expenditure resulting from his own illness.”” The National Association of Trade Union Approved Societies (App. XCII, 100; Q. 22,052) suggest the inclusion of dependants in the extended medical benefit which they propose, and submit that *‘ in the average home medical attention and treatment is more often required by the mother and children than by the man. If, therefore, it is considered necessary to protect the worker against the cost of medical services for himself, it is more necessary to protect him against the heavier risk.” (JONSIDERATIONS OF POLICY. 372. Our conclusion on this problem (irrespective of the financial considerations) may, we think, be inferred from certain parts of Chapter V, and here we need not go into any great detail. Briefly, we consider that medical provision for dependants should form an integral part of any scheme of general health services, administered by the Local Authorities. Whether a contribution to such provision is to be made from insurance funds or not, the fact remains that medical service for dependants is too large a problem to be considered apart from medical service for the whole working-class and, perhaps, middle-class population. If the dependants of the present insured population are brought into the system of medical benefit, the residue of the working- class population is relatively small, and that residue may be still further reduced by the proposals for dealing with the destitute poor which are now under the consideration of the Government. Further, one effect of including the dependants in the medical service of the present Insurance Scheme might be to impede or postpone any ultimate unification of health services. If this were so, we should all the more be in- clined to pronounce against medical benefit for dependants at the present time. We may quote Mr. Brock’s reply to Q. 23,847 in this connexion : ‘If a complete medical service, short of institutional treatment, is going to be provided for insured people, of course, it must emphasise the anomaly that at present their wives and dependants can only obtain such medical treatment as they are able to pay for. But it does seem to be open to question whether the better way of providing for dependants 1s through a system of insurance which must necessarily exclude a certain number of people . . . If it was proposed to provide either a general practitioner service or a complete medical service for the whole industrial population, there are strong arguments in favour of providing this service out of local funds and making it available to all sections of the popula- tion . . > Later he states: ‘‘ Extension of medical benefit to dependants would be less logical and probably less satisfactory than the establishment of a public medical service at the expense

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