Medical Care Insurance: A Social Insurance Program for Personal Health Services; Report from the Bureau of Research and Statistics, Social Security Board, to the Committee on Education and Labor, United States Senate.

1946 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 598-599
Author(s):  
Alton A. Linford
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Health Services ◽  
Social Security ◽  
Medical Care ◽  
Social Insurance ◽  
United States Senate ◽  
Personal Health ◽  
Insurance Program ◽  
Personal Health Services

Medical Care under Social Security in France

1971 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 331-341
Author(s):  
R. F. Bridgman
Keyword(s):  
Social Security ◽  
Medical Care ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Social Insurance ◽  
Medical Profession ◽  
Great Influence ◽  
Payment System ◽  
Public Hospitals ◽  
Health Institutions ◽  
The Government

Social insurance was initiated in France on a national scale in 1930 and now covers about 98.5 per cent of the population. The coverage expanded the limits of traditional sickness insurance for curative medicine and had a growing impact on overall health and social policy. French social insurance is a public service run by organizations which retain the voluntary status of the old mutual funds. The social security budget is independent of that of the government, which contributes less than 20 per cent of the overall social budget of the nation. The relationships between the medical profession, private and public hospitals, preventive care organizations, social insurance funds, and central and local governments have become very complex. The huge social security organization has acquired competence in planning and in technical organizational matters and consequently has had a great influence on medical care patterns. Social security adopted the direct payment system in its relationships with the medical profession; therefore the latter has retained its independent status. But, for public and private hospitals, the payment system is indirect. A special branch was created in 1945 to deal with capital investments in hospitals and health institutions concerned with preventive medicine. Social insurance contributed greatly to facilitating access of patients to all kinds of medical care, either public or private, curative or preventive, and helped the government by participating in the construction of a complex network of health institutions for the benefit of the whole population. This task is not yet achieved, and greater coordination and additional resources are necessary. But there is no doubt that social insurance was and still is a powerful factor in the continuing improvement of the nation's health and living conditions.

scholarly journals Privatization of Social Security Retirement Systems: Lessons and Comparisons from Chile, Argentina, and the United States

2019 ◽  
pp. 97-116
Author(s):  
Elisa Walker
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Security ◽  
Social Insurance ◽  
The United States ◽  
Individual Account ◽  
Retirement System ◽  
Institutional Structures ◽  
Investment Returns ◽  
Group Mobilization ◽  
Retirement Systems

Retirement pensions are traditionally provided through government social insurance systems, which pool risks broadly across the population and provide benefits that are set in law. In contrast, under privatized systems, workers’ benefits depend on their own individual account balances and investment returns, with little or no redistribution and pooling of risk across the population. In 1981, Chile became the first country to fully privatize its social security retirement system, setting an example that Argentina and numerous other countries later emulated. More than two decades later, both Chile and Argentina undertook “re-reforms” to their privatized systems, with Chile maintaining its privatized system while Argentina returned to a fully public system. The United States also confronted efforts to privatize its Social Security system around the same time periods—in the early 1980s and the early 2000s—but ultimately chose to strengthen the existing system rather than privatizing. This article examines and contrasts these three countries’ experiences in the 1980s-90s and 2005-08, probing the factors that led to or prevented privatization. While finances usually provided the stated pretext for reform, privatization is now widely acknowledged to worsen the financial challenges faced by pension systems. Ultimately, neoliberal ideologies were pivotal in putting privatization on the policy agenda, and institutional structures and interest group mobilization helped to shape the outcomes of the privatization effort.

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