Atlanta Georgian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1912-1939, 1914-02-22

Surely the working classes should
have gone wild with delight.
The opposition that grew between
the Introduction of the act and its
coming into operation was so power
full that no Minister, save David
Lloyd George, could have withstood it.
For to-day there are nearly fifteen
millions secured against the disabiiI-
ties of those who may succumb
through lack of proper medical care
in sickness. or sink for lack of food
during unemployment, or wither from
lack of means in old age.
The Benefits Received.
Health Every insured
person upon requiring it receives
medical benefit, sickness benefit, dis
ablement benefit. maternity benefit,
and what may be called additional
varying benefits. The medical benefit
includes free medical treatment and
medicine, and certain kinds Of surgi-
cal appliances. The insured person
has the choice of his own doctor from
the panel of the doctors in his dis
trict
The medicines are supplied by the
drlto0ist in accord with instructions
and prescriptions from the doctors.
who hand them over the counter free
of charge. The druggist then sends
the bill TO the Government. No medi-
cine is forbidden because of cost.
1t seems unlikely, therefore, that
there is at this moment a human be-
ing in the United Kingdom who is not
some time or another being treated
by "A medical man. II has been
great endowment for the doctors.
The sickness benefit is payment
Of $3.50 per week to men and S1.9O to
women up to 26 weeks in which the
person is disabled by sickness. If al
the end of &c weeks the beneficiary
has not recovered. he or she draws
SIPS per week during the rest OF lie.
under the insurance act, up to 20
years of age; after that il IS paid
through the postoffice as an old-age
pension.
The maternity benefit is a payment
of $3.50 to a woman toward the cost
Of her confinement, If she IS either
an insured worker herself or the wife
of an insured worker II she Is both
she gets SIS maternity benefit.
The insurance against unemploy-
ment is as follows: All persons are
guaranteed by the State payment OF
$3.50 per week for fifteen weeks in
the year in case they are genuinely
unemployed for lack of work in their
trades. (The highly organized ex-
changes enable the insurance com
missioners to keep good track of this.)
The greatest care has to be taken to
guard this benefit from abuse.
tuberculosis.
There is no enemy more rightly
dreaded by the working classes than
the great white plague.
Under the insurance act provision
has been made for the building of
sanitaria in all parts of the country,
adequate to treat properly all cases of
consumption among those who come
within its scope.
While the insured person is receiv-
ing treatment at the san!tar.um, the
sick benefits are paid in cash to those
at home, so that not merely is the pa
tient given chance to night his en-
envy in a proper environment. and not
merely is the danger of infection re-
moved, but the home can be kept to-
gether. The results of this method
will tell nightly in the next ten or
twenty years.
Further, it must be remembered
that many who did not visit the doc
tor until perhaps half a lung had
been eaten away will now visit him
instantly when they find their cough
unyielding In that way, this insur-
ancet act viii do a great deal toward
the world ambition of stamping out
consumption by detecting il in pa
tents in the early stages.
over three hundred thousand wom-
en- have applied for and received the
maternity benefits during the last
twelve months, and what that has
meant in ease and comfort to those
who above all others should have
them at such a time can be imagined.
The act has proved an astounding
success. The opposition to it is
heard no more, and if the Government
were turned out of office tomorrow
49, act will remain upon the statute
book