The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-10-19
FISHER EXPLAINS . THE NEW HEALTH
 INSURANCE LAW

Brings About Better Rela-
 tions Between the Elm
 ployer and Employee.
 At a recent session of the Third New England Conference on Thbercu- losis, being held here, Professor Irv- ing Fisher of Yale, spoke on "A Working Legislative Program for Health Insurance" He said in part:
 "The best plan for a health in- surance law is, so far as know, that worked out by the American Asso- citation for Labor Legislation.
 "This law and all its notifications has been reproduced in the state leg islatures of Massachusetts and Cali fornia. During the ensuing year the standard bill will probably be intro duced in about twenty state legisla- lures. Later 1t will undoubtedly be introduced in our national congress in reference to interstate labor and United States government employees, with such notifications as may be necessary in view of any existing ar engagement which may be found to be satisfactory
 "A complete and convincing brief for health insurance" has been pre- pared by the Labor Association.
 The bill proposes the obligatory in surance of substantially>al working men and women who receive not more than one hundred dollars per month. In case of sickness provision is made for medical or surgical ser vice, nursing, medicine. etc.. for maternity benefits and funeral bone fits, amounting to two-thirds of the weekly wages of the insured mem- Der and are not to last more than half a year or than the period of Illness.
 These benefits are paid for at cost by the joint contribution of the in sured employe of his employer. and of the. state. Judging from the Ger man system the cost will amount to about four per cent. of the wages. The cost to the employe will be only two-fifths of the total cost or about one and a half per cent. of his wages. An equal amount is to be paid by the employer and the remainder, or one fifth of the total expense will be born by the state. These proportions rep resent roughly so far as it is pos sible to gauge them, the relative inn portance of such health insurance on the part of the employe, the employ CT and the state as we'll as the relative importance of their respective re- responsibilities in the, matter
 While I think no one will ques- tion the wisdom of having the state contribute and to have it represent ed il; the management, acting as it were as referee where that is neces- sary as between tho employer. and the emp1oye. The employer and the employe may each desire to shift the entire burden of the Insurance on; to the other, but this would be not only unfair but also impracticable if health legislation is to be enacted for neither will consent to accept the en- tire burden. and rightly. s.dsi
 Many object on principle, to any compulsory scheme. But on no other plan can the system be made univec- sal as it should be, on no other plan can those who need the insurance most secure it, and on no other plan can the great expense of securing business and of maintaining re- serve which now make workingmen's insurance a burden if not a farce and confine it almost wholly to funeral benefits be eliminated. The introduce ton of the obligatory system will also eliminate one of the great curses of .he present system. SO far we may be said to have any system, by which those who most need to remain in- sured are forced to let their policies lapse. The Armstrong Investigating Committee in 1906 reported that one- third of the industrial policies lapse within three months, one-half with in a. year and two-thirds within five years. It is probable that these ra- tios are even greater for the mutual benefit associations and trade unions Insurance so far as these exist.
 "All these existing and voluntary systems include only a small fraction of the workers who should-be in- cluded. Even in England where the voluntary system had proceeded to far greater lengths than in the United States the compulsory system more than doubled the number of those insured. In short a voluntary system is so inadequate as, not prop erly to be called any system at all and our choice is between introducing the compulsory system or having sub stantially none.
 We are paying a frightful cost for the lack of health insurance. Nearly three per cent. of the population or about three million people in the United States are constantly ill., This estimate originally based on the call culatiohs of Dr. Farr in England has been confirmed roughly by certain To- cal studies made by an industrial in- surance company. in Rochester and Trenton.
 Sickness is the great. cause of pow erty and poverty in turn becomes a great cause of sickness As one agency for social betterment in the West stated it ''the poor are those whom sickness has halted in their daily tasks" Health insurance will greatly diminish. poverty. It is note- worthy that Germany before England adopted health tnsurance had notably less poverty Tn England or even we may say that health insurance | has two purpoSes, one to indemnify against loss, which is the insurance function proper and the other to stimulate prevention. The last nam- I Y