Switzerland. Report on compulsory insurance against illness and working of mutual aid societies.

Date:
1891
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Switzerland. Report on compulsory insurance against illness and working of mutual aid societies. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    6/18 (page 2)
    Text of Article empowering the Confederation to legislate. Its adoption by the people at the Eeferendum. Compulsory insurance against illness. Adopted in a limited form in the cantons of Appenzell and St. Gall. Appenzell. St. Gall. The Confederation is competent to introduce by way of legislation, insurance against sickness and accidents, taking into account the mutual aid societies already existing. It may declare participation in these insurances obligatory in general, or for certain determined categories of citizens. This partial revision of the Constitution was submitted to the Referendum on October 26 with the result that the principle of compulsory insurance, which it initiated, received the sanction of a very large majority of the Swiss people. In obedience to this popular mandate, the Federal Council is now engaged in the elaboration of the measure for which it has been collecting materials for some years past, but which, owing to the many difficulties surrounding the subject, is not likely to be sub- mitted to the Chambers during the present year. It has been shown in a previous report that it was the sup- posed failure of the Liability of Employers' Acts to protect the interests of workmen, which brought into prominence the idea of their compulsory insurance against accidents, and it may now be well, while awaiting the future proposals of the Federal Govern- ment, to inquire how far the principle of compulsory insurance against illness has already found acceptance in the country, and to examine into the nature and working of the existing mutual aid societies, on which it is suggested that the proposed scheme of compulsory insurance against illness should be grafted. The idea of such a form of insurance is no novel one in Switzerland. It has been discussed over and over again in the legislative councils of certain cantons, but up to the present it has only been carried into effect in the cantons of St. Gall and Appenzell. In both of them, moreover, its scope has been strictly limited to a small fraction of the population, consisting ot natives of other cantons who might otherwise have become a charge on the commune in which they had temporarily settled when prevented by illness from gaining a livelihood. The intro- duction, therefore, of this restricted form of compulsory insurance was prompted by a desire to relieve the communes of a troublesome burden rather than by any social or philanthropic motive. The canton of Appenzell was the first to move in this direction. By a law passed in 1879 each commune was required to take measures, subject to the approval of the cantonal authorities, for the compulsory enrolment into one or other of the existing mutual aid societies of all residents within its districts who were not citizens of the canton. The law fixed the entrance fee into these societies at 5(Z., and the weekly premium at 2hcl The canton of St. Gall took a further step in the same direction in 1885 by passing a law requiring each commune or group of communes to establish special societies for the com- pulsory insurance of all non-natives of the canton who had not already joined a recognised mutual aid society containing at least 100 members. The entrance fee was fixed at 5d., and the weekly premium at 2^d. for men, and 2d. fpr women, and in the eyent ot