THE WAGE-EARNER'S TEETH
Sm,—The article " The Wage-Earner's Teeth " in your issue of May contains the sentence: " The worker, under N.H.I., may belong to an approved soc that provides dental benefit out of its surplus funds."
This is the aspect of N.H.I. that is, amongst others, crying for refo The insured person cannot obtain extra benefit, such as dental, a right, but only if his society makes a profit. It amounts to the that the nation's health, and some 45 per cent, of the nation are ins depends, in the words of The Economist, on the financial and actu ability of a host of weak and expensively administered friendly sock and not on social need.
It not only seems necessary, it seems only common sense, that funds derived from a State monopoly such as N.H.I. should be adm tered through a State department, and not through vested finan interests. At the same time it would also seem ludicrous that whe man is off work ill he has less benefit than when off work through dent at work, and again less than when unemployed. Why his n should be deemed variable according to the cause of his unemple) must be one of the administrative riddles of the age, the solution which, one hopes, will be found on the publication of Sir Wil Beveridge's report on social security.—Yours, &c., G. WRA The Mill House, Ingham, Lincoln. ,
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