SICKNESS INSURANCE

Taranaki Daily News, 23 February 1935, Page 8

SICKNESS INSURANCE

COMPULSORY SCHEME. 800,000 PEOPLE WOULD BENEFIT. There is every probability that compulsory sickness insurance will shortly become a question for consideration in New Zealand. An extension of medical care has already been adopted as part of the policy of one political party, and the example of other countries in adopting sickness insurance schemes is bound shortly to bring the matter prominently under general public notice in New Zealand, says the Wellington Evening Post. The subject will be discussed at the conference of hospital bpards at Napier, which begins on March 5, and it will also receive attention at the conference of the New Zealand branch of the British Medical Association, which will be held at Dunedin from February 26 to March 1. The recommendations of these conferences will be forwarded to the Government foi* consideration. It has already been suggested that an inquiry be held by the Government, which will include the taking of evidence from (1) the medical profession, (2) hospital authorities, (3) the pharmaceutical profession, (4) friendly societies, (5) the ' Government Actuary, and (6) the Department of Health. ALREADY WIDELY ADOPTED. The countries in which a system of compulsory sickness insurance is in force for the benefit of wage-earners are as follows:—Austria, Bulgaria, Chile, Czechoslovakia, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Irish Free State, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Yugoslavia. There are other countries which have had the system under consideration, including Australia, South Africa, and Canada. A committee of the Hospital Boards Association and members of the British Medical Association has recommended that the scheme should be compulsory and should apply to all persons in receipt of salary and wages below the present income tax limits. It should provide, states the joint committee, a complete medical service, and should include' a general practitioner service, hospital benefit, consultant and specialist services, maternity benefit, home nursing, and such other types of medical care as seemed desirable. It was recommended that the scheme should include the dependants of the insured. The committee suggested that the scheme should be applied to all persons between the ages of 16 and 65 years, whose annual salary or wages, after deducting. £5O for each dependant (wife, child, or widowed mother) is below, say, £260. About 800,000 persons in New Zealand would, it is estimated, receive benefits under the scheme. Commenting on the essential benefits of sickness insurance, as shown in the reports of the twenty countries which _ have adopted the system, the ■ Bulletin of the Health Organisation of ' the League of Nations says:—“At the ' present time, in a very large number • of countries, compulsory sickness in- ; surance is an extremely important fac- ] tor in the protection of the health of 1 the wage-earners. In the present ' economic . and social conditions compulsory sickness insurance must be re- 1 garded as the most appropriate and 11 rational method of organising the pro- ’ tection of the working classes against I J sickness. Sickness insurance, when 1 rationally organised, should have three * aims: to compensate the worker for 1 the loss of wages due to sickness; to provide the insured and the members 1 of his family with necessary medical treatment; and to endeavour to | 1 prevent disease by individual or col- ■ lective measures, in co-operation with the other organisations responsible for 1 protecting the health of the people.