Toward Health Insurance

Report Outline
Prospective Extension of Social Security Act
Menace of Sickness to Workers' Security
Croup Protection Against Risk of Sickness
Health Insurance in the United States

Prospective Extension of Social Security Act

Suggested changes in the Social Security Act of 1935, soon to be laid before Congress by the Social Security Board, may include a proposal for revision of the present unemployment compensation system to provide a modified form of health insurance.

Under a plan now receiving consideration by the Social Security Board, state governments would be required, as an additional qualification for the receipt of federal subsidies, to make cash payments to workers in partial compensation for wage losses resulting from disabling illness. A more extensive scheme of health insurance, including provision for medical care as well as compensation for wage losses, will probably be withheld for the present, but is considered certain of submission by the administration to Congress at its next session.

Early advancement of a national plan for health insurance was forecast last November, when a staff of experts was appointed by the Social Security Board to continue the studies in the field of health insurance carried on by the Committee on Economic Security in 1934. In its report to President Roosevelt in January, 1935, the Committee on Economic Security laid down certain “broad principles and general observations which appear to be fundamental to the design of a sound plan of health insurance,” but the specific scheme drafted by the committee was never made public.