MINORITY REPORT
9: a
16. The third argument is that the transfer to Tiocal Authorities
of the administration of benefits paid in cash would result
in a greater equalisation of liabilities over the insured population
as a whole than is secured under the present system. The
present association of insured persons in Approved Societies is
inimical to the interest of those persons as a whole, and to the
interest of employers and taxpayers who contribute to the cost
of the system, because in practice it encourages the process by
which the members composing the healthy groups get most (by
way of additional benefits) in return for their contributions, and
the least healthy least. Under the Approved Society System it is,
in our opinion, impossible to use the whole resources of National
Health Insurance to the greatest advantage of the insured population
as a whole.
17. The object of a ‘‘ national * health insurance system must
presumably be, not to supply cream to the fat and skim milk to
the lean, but good milk fo all insured persons.
18. It 1s already an accepted doctrine of local government
that the inhabitants of a given town or county have such community
of interest with each other that those who are able can
properly be called upon to pay for services which others need.
A system based upon the historic administrative areas of ‘the
country has, therefore, the indefinable but important advantage
of enlisting the support of local sentiment and local patriotism.
19. Where the local community of interest in a public service
stops, and the interest of the community as a whole in
the efficiency of the service begins, that fact is recognised by the
payment of a contribution by the taxpayer in aid of the cost of
the service.
20. The fourth argument is that the transfer of the work of
Approved Societies to Local Authorities must, if it had any
effect of this kind at all, improve and not weaken the possibility
of putting into operation the provisions of the Act of 1911 which
were designed to enable the burden of cost resulting from excessive
sickness (that is, sickness which could and should have been
prevented) to be put upon the right shoulders.
21. Tt is clear from Sections 15 (7), 22 and 68 of the Act of
1911 (now Sections 85 and 107 of the 1924 Consolidating Act),
and from the statements made in Parliament on the introduction
of the Bill, that the framers of the measure intended their
scheme to be intimately connected with the other health
services, and enquiry and action were to be possible wherever
bad environment induced ill-health. Thus action could be
taken wherever the conditions or nature of employment, bad
housing or sanitation, insufficient water supply, or, indeed,
heglect on the part of any person or Authority to enforce the
law relating to public health or housing was involved.
