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:: Reservation by Sir Andrew Duncan and Professor Alexander Gray

Collection:: Economics Books

294. MAJORITY REPORT : RESERVATION. 5. It 1s sometimes argued that money spent on health services will result in savings later, that, as one witness put it, it will yield dividends. In one sense this is obviously true so far as the individual is concerned, but at times the contention appears to involve an unwarrantable implication. By those who argue in favour of more extended expenditure on health services, it is sometimes suggested that this would in no wise diminish—but might on the contrary increase—the power of the country to bear the weight of its financial embarrassments ; that there is in any case a burden of ill-health and suffering to be borne, which is capable of being expressed in terms of money, and that the removal of this would have a favourable influence on the prosperity and the financial condition of the country. °° The burden, the ill-health, the loss in wage, the expenditure on medical service, these '’ we are told ‘‘ are already with us. Insurance is a device for shifting or transferring the financing of the burden.”” That health is financially an asset is undeniable, whether from the point of view of the individual or of the State. Nevertheless if it is suggested that expenditure on health services will render it an easier matter for the community to bear the financial burden resting upon it, the argument is, we think, specious. ~~ Expenditure on social services is not infrequently supported by reference to the economies which will elsewhere result ; it is difficult, viewing the matter retrospectively, to find instances where such hopes have been adequately realised. As our health services are at present organised, we see little to support the view that expenditure on health now would lead to a diminution of expenditure on health in the future. On the contrary, there are grounds for believing that expenditure on health, unless primarily directed to the removal of the causes of ill-health, may tend to occasion a further increase in such expenditure. These observations are not to be taken as implying that there is not a strong case for expenditure on health services, or even that a case might not be made out for regarding such expenditure as so urgent as to constitute the first call on the country’s resources. With that particular question we are not at the moment concerned. We merely desire to point out that the case for expenditure on health is not in fact furthered by what, we are convinced, is the fallacious suggestion that expenditure on health may indirectly help to rehabilitate the finances of the countrv. 6. It is implicit in the contentions of many witnesses that all the medical resources of the country should be made available for every insured person, and obviously, in so far as it should prove to be practicable, the desirability of giving effect to such an ideal (which on general principles need not be restricted to medical resources nor to insured persons) would be denied by none. We are not discussing the argument for the widest possible extension of medical benefit or for the extension of other

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