4.)

MAJORITY REPORT

akin to medical benefit should be entrusted as far as possible to
the bodies which are responsible for the administration of that
benefit.

CRITICISM OF THE ADDITIONAL BENEFIT SYSTEM.

80. Many of the criticisms made on the provision of treatment
 benefits as additional benefits under the Act are directed
to the fundamental characteristics of the system under which
insured persons are grouped in Approved Societies. That subject
is dealt with later in Chapters VIII and IX. Other criticisms
are expressed on the following grounds.
81. These benefits are not given by all Societies, and even
among the societies giving them there is it is stated not merely
no uniformity in the additional benefits given, but there is also
a wide and undesirable variety in the treatment, services and
appliances included, and in the arrangements for part payment
by the recipients. In other words, there is neither unformity
in the selection of benefits nor in the content of the same benefit
as given by different societies with the result, it is said, that there
1s widespread confusion in the minds of the members as to what
precisely their rights are. Further, we are told that the
arrangements made between societies and professional bodies are
wanting in authority and uniformity, and in some cases are
accompanied by undesirable conditions.
Here we need only point out that the promotion of an
additional benefit to the rank of a normal benefit would remove
many of these features since in that event its administration, as
in the case of medical benefit, would be placed in the hands of
the Insurance Committees or their successors.
We will now take the various additional benefits which are in
intention of a medical nature and consider for each its present
method of operation.

DENTAL BENEFIT,

82. For dental treatment as an additional benefit about
£332,000 (including unspent balances carried forward from
previous years) was available in England alone in the year 1924
and nearly the whole of this amount was spent in that year. In
some Societies the benefit included extractions and fillings but
not dentures, in others the position was reversed. There was also
great divergence in the proportions of the cost borne by the
Society and the member respectively. Some Societies paid the
whole cost, other half, others again even less. A very wide
latitude was allowed under the first schemes to Societies in the
arrangements made regarding the scope of the benefit, the scale
of charges, the proportion payable and the agreements with
selected groups of dentists.