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, 310 ployment Act and so a force is created directly opposed to the public interest and to public health. The evidence of the British Medical Association rather indicates that this undesirable effect of the disparity has been noticed by the officials of Employment Exchanges and goes on to state that medical certificates to the effect that a claimant is fit for work are demanded ‘° whenever the clerk in charge of the Exchange thinks they could not work if they were offered it >> (Q. 14,788-14,793). 95. The effect upon health of inadequate maintenance allow- ance during sickness and unemployment is vividly illustrated in the Annual Report of the Chief Medical Officer of ¢the Ministry of Health for the year 1924, paras. 94 and 95. In his Annual Report for 1928, Dr. Dickinson Leigh, the Tuberculosis Officer for Sunderland, in drawing attention to the check in the decline of tuberculosis, points out that, ** The unparalleled poverty and distress due to want of employment is the chief explanation. The want of essential foodstuffs, especially of fats, such as butter and milk, and the lack of suitable clothing and footwear, has markedly lowered the resisting power of the population.’’ 96. In the Report of the Tuberculosis Officer for Newcastle- on-Tyne the increased mortality among women and children from tuberculosis was ascribed to undernourishment and general distress through unemployment; and Dr. James Watt, in the Annual Report of the Metropolitan Asylums Board, suggests the same evil effect of an inadequate standard of maintenance. The obvious effect of insufficient provision for the wage-earner against contingencies of life such as sickness and unemployment, would be a fitting subject to consider in relation to Chapter VI of the Majority Report on the Financial Burden of Existing Social Services. We think, however, it will be agreed that to increase the rates of sickness benefit to the same level as the existing rates of unemployment benefit would be as much in the interest of the prevention of future sickness as in the interest of the sick person at the time of incapacity. We therefore recon - mend that the normal rates of sickness benefit under the Health Insurance Act should be raised to 18s per week for men and 15s. per week for women. DrsABLEMENT BENEFIT. 97. We are not satisfied that Societies generally have administered this benefit as a continuation of sickness benefit at a reduced rate. On the contrary, we feel as has been sug- gested in evidence by Sir Walter Kinnear (Q. 313), that the test of incapacity has been too rigid. The effect of a rigid or drastic administration of this benefit, which in the main applies to cases of chronic incapacitation, is to throw insured persons out of insurance who from recurring incapacity and ignorance of their legal position allow their ‘‘ free year *’ to lapse without enforcing their claim. SF

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