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:: Minority report

Collection:: Economics Books

MINORITY REPORT. 317 88. We cannot pass from this subject without referring to the increased difficulties with which the transfer of the administration of these benefits from Approved Societies will be faced if the administration has been allowed to develop through these bodies to the extent foreshadowed by the valuation figures. 89. The dental benefit which we recommend should form part of medical benefit might at the outset be of such ‘‘ partial service '’ as may be organised within the estimate of £21 millions a year and we recommend that existing surpluses should be brought into the scheme for the provision of such service. 90. We now come to our recommendation that medical benefit as extended should be available for the dependants of insured persons. It is estimated that the cost of providing for dependants a service equivalent “o the present medical benefit would be £9,500,000 a year. We submit, however, that the net cost would be a very much smaller amount. From the statement of evidence submitted by the Ministry of Health as to the scope and inter-relations of the various health services in England and Wales supported by public funds (Appendix CIV) it was shown that the expenditure on medical services other than those associated with mental infirmity amounted to £16,700,000 and the expenditure on medical benefit amounts to about £92 millions a year. We have thus an expenditure of £26 millions a year, if to which is added the eight millions spent on mental infirmity, brings us to the sum of £34,000,000 a year for public medical services of ene kind or another, of which only a small proportion is borne by the Exchequer. Having regard to the ex- penditure by the hospitals and payments to medical practitioners in private practice, we see no reason to doubt the statement made by the National Association of Trade Union Approved Societies (Q. 22,046) that apart from the indirect cost to the nation resulting from the limited character of the medical benefit wo insured persons and the absence of such services to their dependants, the nation is spending £40,000,000, possibly even £60,000,000 a vear on medical services. 91. The case for the co-ordination of all forms of Public Medical Services is to be found in the Majority Report signed by our colleagues. We therefore need not do more at this point than emphasise the conclusion that such co-ordination ‘‘ should tend to diminish disease and sickness *’ (Maclachlan, Q. 24,226), that ‘“ an effective scheme for the treatment of tuberculosis can- not be confined to one section of the community *’ (Maclachlan, Q. 24,092), that the present scheme ‘‘has almost certainly reduced national sickness ’’ (British Medical Association, Q. 14,618) and that ‘“ medically the Insurance Acts have educated the population.’’ (Brock, Q. 23.852). We believe it to be unquestionable that a general improvement in the standard of national health has been

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