The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1919-03-08
STATE INSURANCE.

OhANOEs
rs there class consciousness
among the employers, real estate
men, contractors and insurance
agents of Duluth? When it is OBJ
served how they are united against
organized labor's bill providing for
state fund for the administration
of the workingmen's compensation
act one is forced to believe that after
all there is something to the influ-
ence of economic determinism," al
though we are morally certain en-
ployers of labor who oppose state in
surance are standing in their own
light, and they will find it out some
day.
1t is easy to see why labor is so
eager for the legislature to pass the
state insurance bill. In the first place
it removes from the field of working
mems compensation the claim agent
of an insurance company whose chief
concern is to make money for his
company, rather than to see that an
injured workingman is justly and
adequately compensated. In the next
place it serves to keep employers and
injured employees on friendly terms,
and it finally eliminates every ele-
ment of financial waste now obtain
ing in the industrial accident bust
ness.
State industrial insurance should
be a state monopoly. There are but
two plans of state insurance, elective
and compulsory. Every foreign coun-
try tried out elective insurance, found
it failure, and then established COM
pulsory insurance. Ohio started out
on the elective plan. 1t was not sue
cessful. 1t then changed the plan to
make it compulsory. 1t has been sue
cessful. Under elective insurance the
private insurance companies, which
have the right to say who they will
or will not insure, take only the ordi-
nary risks, and force the hazardous
risks to go to the state, which cannot
discriminate as the private companies
can do. Elective insurance makes the
state rates SO high that they operate
against successful state insurance.
Compulsory state industrial insurance
permits the state to spread the risk
over every industry in the state. This
plan has been endorsed by the lead
ing worlds students of workingmen's
compensation.
It is true that for the next two
year period, should the bill now be-
fore the legislature become law, in
1ured workingmen will not be given
higher compensation than the work.
1ngmen's compensation act provides.
But the unexpended surplus in the
state fund, the money that is now
enjoyed by the insurance companies
and the claim agents and their law
yers, will be so large that the next
legislature can be readily induced to
increase the amount of compensation
to be paid without increasing the
premium rate paid by the employers,
In this way labor will receive higher
benefits from state insurance without
levying a heavier burden upon indus
try and upon consumers, who in the
ast analysis, pay ALL.
At the outset of state insurance
there may be some delays in paying
compensation, but when the state ma
ch1nery gets in working order there
will be no more delay than there is
now. Indeed, there should be less,
Tor the state has no profit interest in
the business. 1t will be solely inter-
ested in preventing the injured work
lngman from becoming an object of
private or public charity. 1t will be
more concerned in the welfare of the
man than are the private companies
engaged in the business wholly for
profit.
The employers will not get cheaper
insurance now, but when future leg
lslatures increase the amount of COM
pensation to be paid, the employers
will not be. required to pay any more
under state insurance than they now
pay for private insurance. This is
the history of state insurance. If
the legislature failed to pass the state
insurance bill and did pass bill in
creasing the present amount of COM
pensat1on to be paid, it surely would
cast the employers more money for
n " ,J.,...-