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 III. The general attitude to the health insurance scheme

Collection:: Economics Books

MAJORITY REPORT. (the Act) has made itself felt throughout the whole of the industrial population.” (Brock Q. 23,856.) 93. While the general principles of the Scheme are thus accepted, and indeed approved by most of the witnesses who appeared before us, we have found a considerable volume of criticism directed against certain aspects of the operation of the Act, as disclosed in the results of thirteen years’ experience. It may be permissible in this Chapter to summarise and review with the utmost brevitly the points to which such criticism has in the main been directed, reserving for later discussion a more detailed consideration of the critical arguments advanced. Tur SCOPE OF THE SCHEME AND THE SOURCES OF REVENUE. 94. Tn the first place, it may be observed that apart from the suggestions as to the lowering of the age at which insurance should begin, to which reference is made in Section A of Chapter XIII, we have had little criticism of the scope of the Scheme so far as concerns the persons included in it. Most of the witnesses were, moreover, practically at one in their approval of the present method of deriving the revenue, that is to say, by means of compulsory contributions from employers and workers with a proportionate contribution from the National Exchequer; though it may be observed that the National Confederation of Employers’ Organisations pressed strongly for a reduction of the contribution and the assignment of a larger proportion of the cost than hitherto to the State (App. CVID. THE SCALE OF THE BENEFITS. 25. On the *‘ cash » side, criticism was directed from some quarters towards the present limitation of the money benefits and, in particular, an unfavourable comparison was instituted with the more generous scale of benefit under the Unemployment Insurance Scheme. On the other hand, this view was contested by many substantial witnesses on the grounds that the additional cash benefits now given by many Societies mitigated any insufficiency in the standard rates of benefit, and that, in any case, it was socially desirable to leave part of the field open to be covered by voluntary insurance. The fact that the maternity benefit was almost; entirely absorbed by the doctor's or midwife’s fees was also the subject of general comment. . On the“ health * side there was an almost unanimous opinion that extension of the scope of medical benefit to cover something more than general practitioner treatment was desirable and necessary, and many witnesses pressed on us the need for linking up more effectively the medical provision under the Scheme with the numerous other forms of public provision for promoting health and preventing disease. A very large part

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