MINORITY REPORT.
ST
I.
tion of cash benefits without the slightest relationship to public
activities affecting the need for these benefits.
56. We accept the principle laid down by the Majority Report
as to ** the desirability of bringing into closer relationship the
various services directed towards the prevention of sickness and
the improvement of health.” We submit that this is impossible
while one essential health service is left unattached ; and we
recommend the substitution of Societies under appropriate
Local Authorities, which would apparently be the County
Councils and County Borough Councils, for the present system
of Approved Societies.
57. Tt seems to us that substantially each of these groups
would be fairly representative of the industrial population of
the country, but in so far as they were not equally representa-
tive the operation of a Central Fund might be the means of
equalisation.
58. At the outset, for the purpose of securing essential
statistics and in order to determine the standards of health in
different parts of the country, it may be necessary to consider
each group as an area Society, the Society operating financially
very similarly to an Approved Society under the present system ;
but as time and experience allowed, it is not unreasonable to
suppose that the actuarial basis as we know it, and the valuations
as they are now conducted, could be very materially modified.
We should, then, for the purpose of establishing this new system,
proceed along existing actuarial lines.
THE FINANCES OF THE PRESENT SCHEME.
59. We are unable to agree that we should make no recom-
mendation which takes us outside the financial limits of the
present scheme. We submit that there is financial loss due to
the overlapping of the various services at present in operation
and that the money available will be increased when these
services are unified and controlled under the TLocal Authority.
60. We are also clear that a Commission dealing with National
Health Insurance must take into account national loss resulting
from neglect to provide sufficiently for the health of all those
who are or will be employable.
61. The whole question of national health is bound up with
that of efficiency and output, and it is impossible to rank as a
“ burden ”’ on industry or on the community an outlay which
safeguards industrial well-being and (to put it no higher) con-
duces to the efficiency of the machine. These charges produce
a definite return. °° There is five per cent. in good conditions,’
said a great employer of labour.
62. We agree with our colleagues that it is desirable
‘that a balance between the expenditure on these schemes
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