A third type of benefits is hospital or sanatorium care, where this is prescribed, or desired, with the consent of the physician. In that case the cash benefit to the dependent members of the family is to be reduced to one-third of wages.

A fourth benefit is the maternity benefit, which is to consist of medical care for the mother, and, in the case of insured women, of a cash benefit, for not more than eight weeks, on the ground that this is a kind of disability from capacity to earn wages, comparable with illness, and that the need for support during this period for wage-earning women is as great as in the case of ordinary illness. Indeed, this need is especially great because of our legal situation, since in some states we prohibit women from gainful employment for a certain period of time before or after child-birth, and therefore deprive them, if they are wage-earners, of their usual source of income.

Finally, there is provision for a funeral benefit of not more than $50. Funeral benefits, as a matter of fact, are the benefits most eagerly desired by our wage-earners. The working men and women of New York State alone, for instance, paid in 1915 to four commercial insurance companies more than $29,000,000 for industrial insurance, which practically amounted to mere burial benefits.

The requisite funds for the proposed benefits are to be contributed two-fifths by the employer, two-fifths by the employe, and one-fifth by the state. In view of what has been said regarding the occupational factors in illness, it has been thought that this contribution of two-fifths from the employer is not excessiv. Moreover, as Professor Seager has well pointed out, it is justified by the importance of enlisting the employer's interest in the whole program and his intelligent coöperation in the administration of the insurance fund. Our experience with workmen's compensation acts shows how much can be accomplisht when we make it financially profitable. If we are to start a "Health First!" campain comparable with the "Safety First!" campain that is now so well launcht we must make health a paying investment for all in a position to promote it.

It would not, however, be just to require the employer to pay

all of the cost of health insurance, as he now rightfully does of accident compensation. The employe's personal habits are responsible for much of his own illness. Thru financial interest the workman himself must be aroused to exercise more care for his own health, to discourage malingering, and to coöperate intelligently in the fair and economic administration of the funds. Unless the worker contributes to the fund, it is hard to see how he could be given voice and vote in its administration.

It is believed also that the state should bear about one-fifth of the financial burden, which is probably not much more than it is already paying in crude and uncoördinated attempts at public health work, in public hospitals and sanatoriums, and in charitable relief to the destitute victims of unprevented disease.

The administration of the plan, as proposed by the bill, is to be vested in local mutual insurance societies, to be supervised by a social insurance commission for the whole state. These local insurance societies are to be governed by representatives elected in equal number by the employers and employes concerned. Employer and employes are to select members of a large committee, the same number from each side; this large committee is to select a smaller board of directors for the insurance society. As you will observ, this is practically the German plan, and our confidence that it will operate well in this country when establisht is based upon observation of its success in Germany. We see no reason why in the administration of such a system there should be anything but the most cordial coöperation. The employer would have no motiv for hampering the efficiency of the plan. On the contrary, we believe that his advice and assistance will aid it.

This is to be the general type of administrativ organization. To supplement it, provision is made for the organization of trade societies in localities where there are enuf individual employes in particular trades to make that administrativ unit of sufficient size. Then there is provision for voluntary organizations, such as we have at present-labor unions, establishment funds, and the like-provided that they meet at all points the requirements of the law, comply with regulations of the social insurance com

mission designed to hold them up to the standards which the law prescribes, and that they are financially sound.

The details of the social insurance commission, the central body to have supervision over the whole system, are left rather shady in the provisional draft bill, because we think this must be adapted to special conditions in the different states that adopt the system. It is proposed, however, that the commission shall consist of three members; that their position shall be non-political as far as possible, and that their tenure of office shall be long enuf to insure continuity of service and the right type of commissioner.

OBJECTIONS TO MODEL BILL.

Objections to the model health insurance bill have come in the main from three groups.

A few employers have objected on the ground that the additional burden would "drive industry out of the state." Careful calculations show, however, that the employer's contribution will equal but a little more than 1 per cent. of pay roll, and so slight an expense need not jeopardize any industry. Moreover, this is the same argument which was made a few years ago against workmen's compensation, and we have yet to learn of a single industry which has left any state because of the burden of compensation payments. In fact, under the New York State compensation law, the most liberal in the world, it has been found that the total cost to employers is actually less than it was under the old liability system. Few would go back to the old system; and on the other hand many are already in favor of health in

surance.

Certain representatives of trade unions have entered protest, usually not against the purposes or principle of the measure, but against the provision that the workers contribute to the insurance funds. In other words, they are willing to receive the benefits, but are unwilling to bear their share of the expense. Needless to say, a system supported solely by the state and by the employers cannot be as liberal or as efficient as one in which the injured persons themselves meet a just portion of the expense and participate in the management.

From a certain element of physicians, also, dissent has been heard. These practitioners, largely "lodge doctors," agree with the principle of universal health insurance and, in common with the leaders of the profession, recognize it as inevitable within the next few years. Their opposition is directed at minor administrativ details in which they fear that their interests may not have been sufficiently safeguarded. As the movement for health insurance develops they will be given full opportunity to present their concrete suggestions, and there is no doubt that as is now the case in Germany and in England, the medical men of the country will soon stand as a unit in support of this twentieth century device for coöperation within the profession.

CONCLUSION.

This, then, is the situation: For our present waste and suffering thru uncheckt disease there is a threefold responsibility, shared in by employer, employe, and the state. Each of these three has a compelling interest, perhaps only dimly glimpsed as yet, in the prevention of preventable disease and in the prompt succor and relief of that which cannot yet be prevented. For the attainment of these purposes the three interested parties must be welded together in a progressiv, educational, health movement, and such a movement can be called into being only thru a comprehensiv plan of health insurance with its burdens equitably distributed.

UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE.

By RUFUS M. Porrs, Springfield, Ill., Insurance Superintendent, State of Illinois.

The branches of insurance which your association has under consideration this afternoon, are now collectively termed "social insurance," but were formerly called "workingmen's insurance." The latter term, however, dropt out of use, being inappropriate, because such insurance was used by many other classes than manual workers.

I believe the name social insurance is unsuitable also. The association of ideas causing its use is rather far-fetcht, but worse, it has, for the general public at least, an unfavorable and erroneous association with the name of the political party called Socialists. The effect of this in producing a hostile initial attitude in the minds of most members of other political parties, is as bad as if it were called Republican, Progressiv, Democratic, or Prohibition insurance. For these and other reasons, I believe it highly desirable to have a new collectiv name of these branches of insurance, and I propose "Welfare Insurance." This name is accurate, for it describes fully and correctly the aim of all of the kinds of insurance included. Neither has it any hurtful association with the name of any political party or doctrine. Welfare insurance, then, is the use of insurance principles and methods for the purpose of supplying pecuniary resources necessary to maintain each citizen of the United States, in a state of well-being, thruout the various misfortunes and emergencies of life which would otherwise destroy his well-being and cause in its place destitution and suffering.

I believe that the substitution of the name welfare insurance for social insurance would be of immense service in bringing about its favorable consideration by the people in general and its ultimate adoption which can only be secured thru their approval.

Turning to unemployment insurance, that branch of welfare insurance which is my subject, we find that in the earliest stages