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 XIII. Miscellaneous questions

Collection:: Economics Books

MAJORITY REPORT. Jor Section A of Appendix I, to our Minutes of Evidence and it is not, therefore, necessary to enter into any detail here on the subject. The absence of a contribution in respect of any par- ticular week in the case of an employed contributor may be due to any of the following causes :— (1) absence from work owing to sickness; (2) absence from work owing to genuine inability to. obtain employment ; (3) voluntary abstention from work ; © the taking up of some non-insurable occupation. Arrears due to the first of these causes do not involve any penalty but in each of the other three cases, unless the arrears are redeemed by payment of the appropriate sum within the time allowed for the purpose, an insured person with arrears exceeding four during the year 1s subject to a penalty in the form of a reduction or suspension of the cash benefits. The title to medical benefit is not now affected by arrears so long as the insured person remains in insurance. Special temporary arrangements have been made under the Prolongation of Insur- ance Act and by related provision in the Arrears Regulations to mitigate the consequences of arrears in the case of insured persons who have had prolonged periods of unemployment during the present trade depression. 654. It has been represented to us in evidence that it is illogical that penalties in the form of a reduction or suspension of health insurance benefits should be imposed on insured persons who have been so unfortunate as to suffer from genuine unemployment, particularly having regard to the fact that under the Unemploy- ment Insurance Scheme contributions are compulsorily payable against the contingency of unemployment and benefit is paid when that contingency arises. These schemes are alike authorised and enforced by the State; yet the circumstance which establishes the insured person’s title to benefit under one scheme involves a penalty under the other. We are impressed by the force of these arguments, and we think that a fundamental dis- tinction should be recognised between arrears arising from genuine inability to obtain work and those arising from voluntary absten- tion from work, or from employment in some non-insurable occupation. ~~ While arrears due to the last two causes must necessarily and properly involve the imposition of penalties, we do not consider that any penalty should be imposed in respect of the non-payment of a Health Insurance contribution for a week during which an insured person was genuinely seeking for work but unable to obtain it. We have received evidence from the Ministry of Labour on the subject (App. CII; Q. 25 290- 23,395), and we anderstand that the Ministry are pre- pared to accept the general principle which we have set out above, but at the same time think it necessary to point out the difficulties of devising any satisfactory machinery for proving

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