IWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF STATE-AIDED INSURANCE IN GERMANY.

Otago Witness, Issue 2761, 13 February 1907, Page 80

IWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF STATE-AIDED INSURANCE IN GERMANY.

On the 17th of November 25 years had passed sines the day on which the Emperor William I promised his people the legislation which a few years later created the existing great German system of insurance. A summary of the results of that Legislation was published in Soziale Praxis of November 15. About one German in five is insur-e-d for sickja-ees, on& in three for accident, and one in four for infirmity or old age. Every year nearly £25,000,000 is paid to sick, injured, infirm, or old persons*. Of this amount £12,500,000 is found by employers, £10,250,000 'by insured persons, and £2,225,000 by the State. On© of the beneficent arrangements in the system of insurance for sickness is that every insured working woman who is confined receives an allowance for six weeks.

The svsteni for insurance for infirmity has had very remarkable result*. It is, of course, veiy much bettor tor a person At ho is made infirm by some cuise other than old age, as well as for the community, that he or she shall, if possible, be enabled to resume woik. than that he or .she shall leceive a pension till death ; and as the law enables the insurance associations either to treat infirm persons in hospitals or sanatoria, or to give them pen-->i<)ns, a laige number ot hospitals and sanatoria have been erected all over the land. A very large proportion of the psieons who apply for infirmity allowances suffer from tuberculosis. Among m-iii aged fiom 20 to 24 who are made unable to work by illness, about 5 per wnt. suffer from it. No less than 74 open-air sanatoria have therefore been built for th- treatment of claimants who suffer from this one disease. Un an average each patient remains under treatment about thr-o montlis. In 1902. 16,518 persons suffering from tubeiculosis and 19.433 suffering from other diseases were treated under the insurance law. The proportion of those suffering from tuberculosis who regain power to work for a living is over 75 per cent., but a good may lose th" power again when they return to thciv crowded dwellings and to hard work Yit at the end of four yeais from the clote (if l]w year in which treatment was received 31 per cent, of the i>i-r«ons dealt with are still able to work. The suer ehses and the failures have led to a jrreat rtrtd vigorous attack on the c ium's of consumption and other diseases, in sc-hooK workshops, and dwelling*, and to earnest effort* to lessen the use of alcohol and to provide wholesome forms of ieci".ition for" young and old. Th < Herman system of insuiance receivt.l the hitrhe«t award which was given at th" St. Louis Exhibition, and the Tmpeiiil Commissioner attributes this to ttie fact tint it proved the tfnpfrirtritv of lompulsory to voluntary treatment. The vv-ti-m Ims Auwn. he feavs, that by far the m-e.iUr number of the pei>ons who aie iniuivd during their woik can be restoied to health by timely and appropriate treatment, and that the millions spent on the treatment pay abundant interest, h* the education and training of pverv effective woiking person cauee the nation expense, whuh is normally made good by the productiveness of his or her work, while economical loss is involved in the piematuie ending of hi? or her working power. He adds that German experience show* that compulsory insurance is bein^ more and more transformed from a system of cure to a system of prevention ; but that, but for the establishment of compulsory insurance, it would hardly have been possible* to take, so quickly and on sn large a scale, measures against consumption, diseases caused by licentiousness, misuse of alcohol, bid dwellings, ar.d other evils. That the introduction of compulsoiv insurance has not broiujht self-h-lp m (it- I many below the English level is shown by the statistic? rel.itimr to savint."- banks. ' In the years 1903-4 the

amount of money in those bants per head of the* population was for poor Prussia £10 10s 6d, and for rich England £4 15s 7d.