Newark leader. ([Newark, Ohio]) 1917-1946, 1918-11-15

NelIC ClSCllOlCos
The local health work is managed
by city village and township depart
ments or boards of health. There are
2, 141 health officers in these local
subdivisions. There are 5 district
hospitals, 3 county hospitals, 2 mu-
nicipal hospitals and 2 semi-public
hospitals for the care Of tuberculosis.
The total investment in these institu-
tions is $2,500,000. Facilities are pro-
vided for a total of 800 patients, and
the cost averages at this time about
$500 per day per patient. A total of
$4,000 a day is expended on these in
stitutions, which amounts to more
than Million Dollars year, not in
Guiding interest and depreciation.
Principles of Insurance
Insurance is a distributor of risk.
Whenever several persons who are
exposed to a certain risk agree to
share one anOther's losses, the prin-
ciple of insurance is applied. Each
pays part Of all losses in the group,
in order to have his own losses dis
tributed among all of the group.
Health insurance is means of dis
tributing the cost of sickness by the
collection of regular premiums for
the payment Of benefits or losses to
those who are disabled by sickness or
non-industrial accidents.
Voluntary insurance may be pri-
vate or public. 1t is carried on to
some extent by commercial companies,
fraternals, trade unions, establish
ment and mutual benefit societies in
nearly all countries where state in
surance is not required.
Compulsory health insurance is
generally provided under govern
ment auspices, and all persons in GER
tain groups are required to be insured.
The cost is usually borne partly out of
the public treasury The insurance
IS carried either in a government
fund, or by friendly societies, trade
union funds, mutual benefit and esta-
blisment funds.
A large part of the workingmen of
Ohio carry small policies sufficient
for burial purposes. This kind Of in
surance is known as industrial in
surance, and in 1916 the premiums
paid in Ohio to the industrial insur-
ance companies, according to the In
surance Yearbook for 1917 amounted
to $11,264,000, and the losses paid
amounted to $3,064,000. Nearly all
OF the trade unions and mutual benefit
societies provide a payment of $50 to
500 for burial purposes. Several
thousand provide for the contingency
Of death through larger policies in
the fraternal orders or insurance COM
panies, and there is considerable de-
velopment of group life insurance
whereby the employer insures all his
employees as a group.
Cost of Health Insurance
The extent of sickness measures the
cost of health insurance. The amount
Of money collected and distributed
under any health insurance plan is
dependent, therefore, upon the amount
Of sickness. The cost of sickness
must be borne by some one whether
there is an insurance plan to cover it
or not. Health insurance distributes
the cost among all people, rather than
leaves it to be borne by those who
are sick.
The Distribution of Insurance Cost
In all countries the insurance is
borne in varying proportions by the
anu CIlC
This is a recognition that to some
degree each is responsible for sick
ness and should therefore pay part
of the cost.
The proposals thus far made in this
country apportion the cost as follows:
40 per cent from employers, 40 per
cent from employees and 20 per cent
from the state. The New York Bill
proposed by the State Federation of
Labor divided the cost equally be-
tween the employees and the en-
ployers.
A plan has been suggested to the
Commission that, instead of placing
a fixed part of the cost of the insur-
ance on the state and the community,
the burden Of insurance for certain
specific diseases which are more
strictly community diseases be borne
by the state and the community. The
spread of such diseases as tubercu-
losis, typhoid, smallpox, diphtheria,
etc, are chargeable largely to the
laXness of the community. In such
cases, under the proposal made, the
state would provide insurance for all
its citizens against such diseases and
any ClIy OF local community WIllSh
had an excess Of such diseases would
pay for that excess.
Compensation for OccupatiOnal
Diseases
The Workmen's Compensation Act
of Ohio covers industrial accidents
but not industrial diseases. Thus, if
a person is injured by accident, he is
compensated, but if he contracts lead
poisoning in the industry, he is not
compensated.
The number of cases of industrial
disease compensated under the Work
mems Compensation Acts would be
small because it is extremely diff
cult to trace the cause of the disease
to a particular indu stry. California
compensated only 348 cases in 1876
1917, and the average loss or each
worker was only II days.
The Commission calls attention to
these facts in order to avoid the con-
fusion which exists when compensa-
tion for industrial diseases is dis