HEALTH INSURANCE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 218, 14 August 1937, Page 9

HEALTH INSURANCE.

PROPOSED AUSTRALIAN PLAN. CONTRIBUTORY. PENSIONS. CANBERRA, Aug. 13. A national health insurance plan for Australia covering all employees aged 16 and over, except those who are not manual labourers and are receiving more than £365 a year, is recommended in the report of Sir Walter Kinnear, Controller of. the Insurance Department of the British Ministry of Health, who was engaged by the Commonwealth Government to report upon the subject. Benefits suggested are free medical attendance and treatment with a sickness benefit for men of 20s a week and for women of 15s and 3s 6d a week for each dependent child under 16. A disabled benefit tor moil of 15s and women of 12s 6d and 3s 6d weekly foi dependent children is also suggested. Compulsory weekly contributions would be Is 3d for men, of which employer and employee would pay 7 3 d each, and Is 2d for women of which employer and employee would pay /d ' A widows’, orphans’ and old age contributory pensions plan, closely interlocked with the suggested health lnsura.nce project, is also recommended. Sir Walter Kinnear proposes that the Commonwealth should start tho pensions plan with a grant of £1,000.000 a vear for the first five years, and the o-rant should thereafter be increased at the rate of £500,000 a year, until it reaches a. maximum of £10.000,000 in 1960 when the grant would be stabilised. Contributions by insured persons would cease at 65 in the case of men, and 60 for women. Old age pensioners should have free medical benefits for life. ~ . Sir Walter Kinnear suggests that weekly contributions to the pension fund should be Is 9d in the case of men and 10d in-the ease of women. Thus the total weekly contributions, shared equally bv employer and employee. to the combined health and pensi oils fund would be 3s m the case of men and 2s in the ease of women.