The Greenville journal. [volume] (Greenville, Ohio) 1850-1918, 1918-01-24
PraIses state Insuranee Plan.

ers of this state who are state insur-
ance subscribers, $S,1S6,942.30 in the
cost Of their workmen's compensation
insurance.
That is the difference between the
cost Of the state plan and the sun
that would have been the cost TO
those subscribers, had they purchased
their insurance from the liability COM
panies instead. For the single year
1917. the Ohio insurance plan saved
its subscribers q minimum of $5.00Os.
900.
These are statements of the Ohio
Industrial commission in a bulletin
which is a comprehensive survey Of
the workmen's compensation insur-
ance field in this country. 1t gives,
for the first time since the state In
surance plan was inaugurated by
Ohio in July of 1911, broad analysis
of the state insurance cost to sub
scribers and a comparison OF that
cost with what the commission COM
putes would have been the cost had
the state not invaded the field Of the
liability, or stock companies.
In declaring that in the one year
Of 1917, had the Ohio state insurance
plan been in operation throughout the
United States, it would have saved
the employers of the nation $685.
400, 1000, the bulletin says:
1T is submitted, that with the
grave national crisis that is now be-
fore the country, the employers Of
the nation can i'll afford to be bur
dened annually with this $23, 100000
sheer waste"
Drawing the conclusion from the
operation of the plan in Ohio and
other states, the advance of state In.
surance in the United States and its
even more rapid progress in Canada,
the bulletin predicts:
Five years from now the liability
insurance companies will be writing
negligible part of workmen's COM
pensation insurance of the United
States and Canada, partly as an eco
nomic result, but primarily as a
matter of public policy. AS a moral
should never heretofore have been per-
mitted to enter.
1T is too apparent to warrant dis
cussion, that it is fundamentally
wrong in principle to place injured
workmen or their dependents, most
often wholly unfamiliar with their
rights, and who are in most instances
impersonal third parties to the con-
tract, in a commercial field for pur-
pose Of protiteering.
The commission computes that at
the rates of the liability companies
basis manual for May l, 1916, and as
| thereafter amended, the premiums
subscribers to the state fund would
| have had to pay to the liability COM
| panies for the same compensation in
surance would have totaled $22, 1885,
S35.73 between uJly, 1911, and May,
1917.
With that figure, the commission
contrasts the sum of the losses of sub
scribers to the state fund, which total
| $12,967, ,4S6.92, and the grand total
cost to the state administering the
state fund, which is $1,101, ,406.51, or q
total of $14,06S,S93.43.
In other words, the commission
says, the increase in the cost of the
plan of the liability companies over
the state insuTanye plan is minimum
of So per cent.
The reasons, the commission sum-
marizes thus:
1.-The state insurance plan saves
the factor of agents and brokers'
commissions, which in 1917, the bulle-
tin says, would have totaled $685.
1880 in Ohio.
2-There is no duplication of work
and lost motion.
The bulletins story comedies with
the statements.
Fer 81 the Ohio state fund pro-
duces $100 in compensation benefits;
for 81 the stock companies provide $6
to compensation benefits"
Save, Says Ohio War Board.
The Ohio war board says: Back
from Europe the casual person comes
and says:
"Oh, yes! They had food over
there-sugar was little short, but l
didn't see any starving in France and
England"
The answer to that is this:
The United States is sending over
most of their food.
There is no reserve of foodstuffs in
Europe; productive forces are par
alyzed.
Their armies and ours cannot fight
without food.
AS long as we had surplus in the
United States of wheat it was easy
enough to export it.
But we are now confronted with
world shortage. What we must con-
tinue to send must come from our saw
ings.
This can only be accomplished by
rigid observance of wheatless days
and wheatless meals in every home
and every eating place in this country.