Health Insurance in Foreign Countries

Report Outline
Health Insurance Plan in Next Congress
Types of Foreign Health Insurance Plans
Health Insurance in Great Britain
Socialized Medicine in Soviet Russia

Health Insurance Plan in Next Congress

Although health insurance is an important feature of social insurance schemes in most foreign countries, the social security system of the United States makes no provision for assisting workers in bearing the economic burdens of sickness. A plan designed to provide such assistance-through insurance against the costs of medical care and against loss of wages during illness-will be laid before the next Congress and in all probability will receive strong support from the administration.

The proposed health insurance plan was drafted by a technical committee on medical care composed of government officialswa as part of a comprehensive national health program. The complete program, which was formulated at the instance of the Interdepartmental Committee to Coordinate Health and Welfare Activities appointed by President Roosevelt in 1935, was submitted to the National Health Conference at Washington in mid-July, where it was the subject of discussion by representatives or organized labor, agriculture, civic groups, and the medical profession.

In a message to the health conference, which had been called at his suggestion, President Roosevelt expressed the hope that “a chart for continuing concerted action will begin to take form.” A coordinated national health program “necessarily must take account of the fact that millions of citizens lack the individual means to pay for adequate medical care,” he said. “The economic loss due to sickness is a very serious matter, not only for many families with and without incomes, but for the nation as a whole.”