Sickness Insurance and Group Hospitalization

Report Outline
New Plans for Meeting the Burdens of Sickness
Changing Status of the Medical Profession
Recent Growth of Group Hospitalization Plans
Proposals for System of Sickness Insurance
Attitude of Medical Profession to Health Insurance
Sickness Insurance in Foreign Countries

New Plans for Meeting the Burdens of Sickness

Appointment by President Roosevelt on June 29. 1934, of a committee to formulate plans for a comprehensive system of social insurance, including insurance against sickness, has enhanced the likelihood that such protection will be made available to the people of the United States at the next regular sessions of Congress and the state legislatures, scheduled to meet in January, 1935.

The problem of providing against sickness and accident, always a difficult one for persons of small means, has been rendered more acute by the long-continued depression. Wide interest in group hospitalization plans and advance provision for medical services through fixed periodic payments has been stimulated meanwhile by the reports of the Committee on the Costs of Medical Care.

Present tendencies in the direction of group hospitalization and sickness or health insurance have disclosed sharp differences of opinion on these subjects in the ranks of the medical profession. The American Medical Association, the most representative body of American physicians, maintains its traditional attitude of hostility to group practice and health insurance, insisting that the present relationship between doctor and patient must not be disturbed. The American College of Surgeons, on the other hand, has recently assumed leadership in the movement for health insurance, recognizing that there are important groups in the population for whom adequate medical services are not now available.