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From Defining Characteristic to Vitiation of Principle

The History of the Odd Fellows' Stipulated Sick Benefit and Its Implications for Studying American Fraternalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

J. C. Herbert Emery
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Abstract

Some studies that address the decline of fraternal sickness insurance conclude that fraternal insurers were crowded out of the market by increasing government and commercial competition. This line of reasoning reinforces beliefs that government and commercial insurers were superior to fraternal providers and that voluntary insurance arrangements were deficient for addressing household income risks before the rise of the welfare state. This article shows that this interpretation is problematic. The largest sickness insurer in the United States, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, dismantled its sick benefit arrangements between the 1860s and the 1920s not because of an inability to compete with the government and commercial insurers that were not in the market until well after 1920 but rather because of declining demand for the insurance within the membership.

Type
Articles
Information
Social Science History , Volume 30 , Issue 4: The Persistence of the Health Insurance Dilemma , Winter 2006 , pp. 479 - 500
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 2006 

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