I move the Second Reading of this Bill. This is only a short, temporary Bill, following on the same lines as the Bill of last year or the previous year. Provision for the cost of medical certification was made in the Vote for the National Health Insurance Commission until the 31st December, 1923, the last year the item was included in the Estimates being the year 1923-24. A Committee of Inquiry into Health Insurance and Medical Services was appointed in May, 1924, to consider, inter alia, whether it is desirable to institute a system of medical treatment on a contributory basis and if so to advise as to the form that such system should take. As there seemed to be a possibility that medical benefit either under the Health Insurance Acts or otherwise, might be introduced as a result of the Committee's inquiry and that the necessity for separate provision for medical certification would consequently disappear, it was arranged to find the money for the year, 1924, as a temporary measure, out of insurance funds. This was effected by the National Health Insurance Act, 1924. The issue of the final report of the Committee of Inquiry has been unavoidably delayed and it became necessary to make similar provision for 1925, which was done by the National Health Insurance Act, 1925.
It is now desired to make provision for the year 1926. The money is to be found in precisely the same way as in 1925, i.e., debits of the same amount as are laid down in the 1925 Act are again to be made against Approved Societies, the Military Forces (International Arrangements) Insurance Fund, the Deposit Contributors Fund and the Exempt Persons Fund, and the sums so realised are to be carried to medical certification and second medical opinions for 1926 will be made out of that fund and any deficiency will be met by transferring the necessary sum from the Unclaimed Stamps Account.
Section 27 of the National Health Act, 1923, was continued in force until the 31st December, 1925, by Section 6 of the National Health Insurance Act, 1924. The Minister for Finance has agreed that the provision made in those Sections may now be continued until the 31st December, 1926. The object of the clause is to provide money out of sums unclaimed in the Stamps Sale Account which can be supplied to recoup societies for continuing in benefit persons who, on account of arrears due to unemployment, would either be suspended from benefit or would have their benefits reduced. There is nothing new in the Act. Precisely the same method was introduced last year.
