[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-rise-of-the-empire-spain":3,"chapter-rise-of-the-empire-spain-rise-of-the-empire-spain-chapter-378":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"chinese","Rise of the Empire: Spain",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},2365306,4632,"Chapter 378: Medical Security Bill","rise-of-the-empire-spain-chapter-378",378,"\u003Cp>The Boer War finally ended after lasting a year and a half, and Gao Da had long anticipated that the British would not allow the war to drag on any further.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>When all is said and done, the Boers were merely a people with a population of four or five hundred thousand; the difficulty of them wanting to defy the heavens and change their fate was extremely high, and one could even say it was pure wishful thinking.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>That they were able to drag it out for a year and a half was due not only to their own tenacious will to resist but also to the crucial support provided by various European nations.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The reason the Boer War in history took two and a half years was mainly because, after the British had fully occupied the two Boer states, the Boers' resistance against the British government and the corresponding guerrilla warfare were also included in the count.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If calculated this way, the current Boer War must have taken even longer than in history.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Because the Boers in this world harbored a deeper hatred for the British, if the British wanted to resolve the Boer problem, they would still need to station large numbers of troops in the Transvaal and Orange regions to completely eliminate these determined resistance fighters.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Historically, after winning the Boer War, the British still had to maintain a garrison of over 200,000 men to ensure the region would not be reoccupied by the Boers.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>These garrison troops were also a massive military expenditure, which meant that although the Boer War had ended, the British still had to pay a large amount of capital, manpower, and material resources every year to counter the Boers.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>For Spain and the various European nations, this could be considered good news. Regardless of whether the British government was willing or not, in order to suppress the local Boers in South Africa, they had to mobilize a large number of troops and spend a significant military budget.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The end of the Boer War did not cause Gao Da to pay too much attention to the situation in South Africa, because in 1896, Spain's medical department was about to take significant action.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Your Majesty, this is the medical insurance plan we have formulated after more than half a year of preparation, referencing the relevant social security regulations of various European countries and combining them with our national conditions.\" The Minister of Health, Valentino Hernandez, handed a medical insurance bill to Gao Da and introduced it very respectfully.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The main content of this bill was medical insurance regulations concerning workers. The reason for formulating such a plan was actually a helpless choice of social development.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Spain's reforms and the Five-Year Development Plan effectively promoted the development of industry, and also brought the number of workers in Spain to several million.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Although the government had also issued some bills to protect the rights and interests of workers, the essence of this era was that capitalists oppressed workers, and Spain could not change the essence of the era.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Workers were a high-income group, and they held supreme attraction for those lower-income Spaniards. With the opening of Spanish technical schools, a large number of people became skilled workers every year through technical schools or other means, joining the large group of workers.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>These groups of workers constantly pouring into the industry disguisedly increased the competition among workers. This also led to more choices for factory owners, and in order to keep their jobs, workers had to agree to the factory owners' demands for overtime.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Spanish government had repeatedly issued orders regarding this, and there were various requirements for overtime hours and overtime pay. If a worker was injured due to overtime, the factory not only needed to provide medical treatment for the worker but also needed to provide a certain amount of compensation.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Although such policies guaranteed the interests of workers to a certain extent, as the saying goes, there are policies above and countermeasures below; wanting to fully guarantee the interests of workers was simply impossible in this era.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Capitalists had a large number of means to force workers to work overtime for free. If the workers were unwilling, the capitalists could simply choose to dismiss the workers.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After all, this was not the later generations where dismissing an employee required paying more compensation. In this era, dismissing an employee did not require much compensation; one only needed to pay the wages for the time the worker had previously worked.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Currently, there had already been multiple incidents where workers were injured in accidents caused by being in a daze due to long hours of overtime.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Although under the supervision of the government and the urging of the Workers' Party, these factories where accidents occurred had all compensated the workers.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But it was very clear that these compensations were just a drop in the bucket compared to the workers' losses. If one was unfortunately disabled because of this, even if the injury could be healed, they would basically not be able to find a job in the future.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This was a huge blow to the family the worker belonged to; the breadwinner of the family could not find a job, which meant that this family would not be able to obtain sufficient income for a long time in the future.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Aiming at such a phenomenon, Gao Da had already ordered the medical department last year to explore relevant bills and, referencing the handling methods of various European countries, provide a certain degree of guarantee for workers' medical problems.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>With a relatively perfect medical security system, even if any accident occurred during the work process in the future, workers could heal their injuries through the medical security system and use the factory's compensation to maintain their lives, instead of using the factory's compensation to pay for their own medical treatment and then living in poverty for the rest of their lives.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Gao Da picked up this medical security bill and read it carefully.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>First of all, it must be clear that the medical security system of this era was certainly unable to be as perfect as that of later generations.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In order to make those factory owners agree to pay a portion of the medical security fund for the workers, the medical department lowered the proportion submitted by the factories to 30%, and the remaining 70% needed to be paid by the workers themselves.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This was also a matter of no choice. If the factories were made to bear the majority of the medical security fund, this would greatly increase the cost of employing people for the factories.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In this way, the situation of those smaller-scale factories would become even more worrying. This was no longer a matter of whether those factory owners were willing to pay the medical security fund, but whether those small factories could continue to survive after this bill was established.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>For the workers, although 70% of the medical security fund needed to be paid by themselves, this at least allowed them to have no worries for the future.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It would be fine if no accidents occurred during the work process, but even if an accident did occur, the compensation from the medical security fund would be enough to let their families get through the most difficult times.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Although this might not be the optimal choice, for the current Spain, such a bill could effectively improve the situation of workers.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Regarding the payment of the medical security fund, what kind of supervision intensity does the medical department plan to adopt?\" Gao Da did not rush to nod and agree to this bill, but asked about the issue he cared about.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Although this bill seemed to be able to improve the current medical situation of workers, the issue of the payment of the medical security fund was also of paramount importance.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>First is whether the workers are willing to pay this medical security fund, and second is whether the factory owners will delay the payment of the workers' medical security fund.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>For factory owners, they would certainly delay as long as they could.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The various policy procedures of this era were not complete; if there appeared a phenomenon where factory owners promised to pay the security fund but eventually delayed or even did not pay under various excuses, wouldn't this mean that this bill would eventually lose its effect?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Hearing Gao Da's inquiry, the Minister of Health, Valentino Hernandez, replied very respectfully: \"Your Majesty, we plan to specifically establish a medical security department to supervise and manage the payment of the medical security fund.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Once it is discovered that a factory has a situation where the number of employees and the amount of medical security fund paid do not match, the department can also deal with it in a timely manner.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Gao Da nodded and said: \"Looking at it this way, this department supervising the payment of the medical security fund needs to involve several aspects. How about this, this department is affiliated under the Ministry of Health, but is jointly supervised by the Ministry of Industry, the Ministry of Livelihood, and the Ministry of Health.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The intention of this bill is good, and I hope that this bill can effectively improve the medical situation of workers, so that workers do not have to worry about their future when they are working.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Yes, Your Majesty.\" Valentino Hernandez certainly understood that such a supervisory department could not be controlled by the medical department alone.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After all, it was necessary to have contact with various factories, so it certainly required relevant support from the industrial department. Medical care itself was closely related to the livelihood department, and only with the cooperation of several departments was there a possibility of perfectly promoting this bill.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"If we want to fully implement this bill, how much budget do we need to pay?\" Gao Da continued to ask.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The purpose of this kind of medical security was certainly not to make money. To guarantee the millions of workers in Spain, the government must pay enough funds for this.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Once it involved funds, it still needed to be carefully considered. Spain was no longer what it used to be; with a powerful navy, Spain's military expenditure had been constantly climbing.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Under these circumstances, in order to avoid fiscal stimulus, various departments could only save fiscal budget as much as possible.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If implementing this bill required too much fiscal budget, Gao Da could only consider trying it out in certain areas or temporarily delaying the implementation of the bill. \"Your Majesty, we have considered the situation of cooperating with several major domestic insurance companies. If we cooperate with these insurance companies, we can effectively reduce our fiscal budget expenditure.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Assuming that all workers in the country have purchased medical insurance, according to the current probability of factory accidents, our annual expenditure is about 15 million Pesetas.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Gao Da nodded; such expenditure was still within an acceptable range.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Those insurance companies in the country are, after all, profit-oriented. I do not exclude cooperation with them, but corresponding supervision work should be done well.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I do not want our workers to have worked hard to purchase medical security funds, only to be refused compensation by the insurance company after being injured.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This point needs special attention. As long as the compensation conditions are met, whether it is a government insurance company or a private one, they should unconditionally pay medical funds to the workers.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>When cooperating with domestic insurance companies, this point must be made clear to them. The government does not oppose them making money, but while making money, they must also do things.\" Gao Da instructed.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Although cooperating with insurance companies could effectively reduce the government's fiscal expenditure, Gao Da was quite clear about the means of these insurance companies.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>By means of refusing compensation, insurance companies could reduce a large amount of expenditure. Among them, there were indeed some incidents that did not meet the compensation scenarios, but there was also a considerable part that met the compensation scenarios, but the insurance companies refused to compensate with various means and excuses.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Gao Da did not want the medical bill specifically established for workers to be a wedding dress for these insurance companies. The money that should be earned should naturally be earned, but the things that should be done must also be done.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Yes, I understand, Your Majesty the King.\" The Minister of Health, Valentino Hernandez, nodded very solemnly; he certainly also understood the importance of supervising these insurance companies.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After all, this was a project that benefited the people, but if these insurance companies took advantage of the loopholes and became the final beneficiaries, it would not only make the political achievements that the medical department was about to obtain vanish into thin air, but it might even make the medical department bear the responsibility.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After all, the dissatisfaction of workers was no joke. The dissatisfaction of farmers would generally be endured, which was also the reason why the rule of various European countries was relatively stable before the arrival of the industrial era.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But if the worker group became dissatisfied, they would most likely take to the streets to demonstrate. Once a large-scale demonstration broke out, there was a trend of evolving into an armed uprising.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Valentino Hernandez did not dare to bear the consequences of angering the worker group. What's more, the Workers' Party, which took protecting the interests of workers as its party platform and constitution, had already become an important party in Spain.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If workers paid the medical security fund but could not receive compensation, even without the workers demonstrating, the monstrous anger of the Workers' Party would be something he could not bear.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After all, Spain's Lower House still had the power to supervise the cabinet government. If he were impeached by members of the Workers' Party, even if he could be safe in the end, his political career would basically be over.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Establishing the Workers' Party was also Gao Da's plan, allowing the worker group to have a channel to express their political claims.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As long as workers found that pushing members to propose bills in the Lower House was far more effective than demonstrating, they would gradually abandon the way of demonstrating.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Gao Da attached great importance to the opinions of workers. Although there had been no phenomenon of Workers' Party members impeaching cabinet members yet, Workers' Party members had already proposed many bills beneficial to workers, some of which had been officially passed in the Lower House, which was also the reason why the Workers' Party gained widespread support from workers, because the Workers' Party was truly doing things.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Since it had been determined that this bill was feasible, the most important thing next was to propose this bill in the Lower House, and then have the members vote on it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This kind of bill, which had already been decided to pass, would naturally not encounter any obstruction in the Lower House.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The voting result was also very obvious; it was passed with more than 75% of the votes, and this medical security bill also started to be implemented smoothly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After the bill was officially passed, the medical department contacted several large insurance companies in Spain.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Regarding the cooperation with the medical department, these insurance companies were all quite willing. After all, the so-called medical insurance involved the entire worker group of all of Spain, which was at least a number of millions of people.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Even if the government's supervision intensity was very strong, the so-called medical insurance was also very profitable.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After all, the accident rate of factories could not be too high; if the accident rate was relatively high, then there would be no need for the factory to continue operating.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After all, one accident required a large amount of compensation, which was also a not-so-small expenditure for factory owners.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Especially those relatively large factories, once an accident occurred, there might be more than one worker injured.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In order to ensure that such a policy would not be resisted by the worker group, the medical department decided to first promote it in Madrid and Barcelona.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Madrid and Barcelona were also the two largest industrial cities in Spain, and the number of workers owned by these two cities had already approached one million.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was very necessary to conduct a pilot in these two cities; it could both test the attitude of the worker group towards this medical bill and test whether this medical bill had any substantive help to the worker group.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The good news was that because of the good reputation of the Spanish government among the people, this bill did not get the rejection of the worker group.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After learning that they needed to pay 70% of the medical security fund, the worker group did have some hesitation. But the factory owners also needed to pay the remaining 30% after all, and these medical securities were all aimed at the workers themselves, and the government would also strongly supervise it, so it seemed to have some credibility.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Many workers, after the government's propaganda, spontaneously purchased the worker medical insurance launched by the insurance company.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>When the medical department was conducting propaganda, it also specifically emphasized which insurance companies were cooperating with the government.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The medical department even specifically promised that as long as they purchased medical insurance from the insurance companies cooperating with the government, if these insurance companies refused to compensate in the future, the government could force the insurance companies to make ten times the compensation.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This indeed made some workers feel at ease; after all, the promise of the Spanish government at this time was still very effective, and most workers were relatively at ease.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As for those factory owners, whether they would be dissatisfied because of this, that was not something the Spanish government should consider.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If the dissatisfaction of the worker group could still have an impact on the Spanish government, then the impact of the factory owner group on the Spanish government was minimal.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Although factory owners also belonged to capitalists, the power of these small and medium-sized capitalists could not shake Spain, which was implementing state capitalism.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Whether it was the capital owned by the Spanish government or the capital owned by the royal family, it was not something these small factory owners could contend with.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Even, the factories owned by the Spanish government and the royal family were the largest factories in Spain. Under the premise that the government and the royal family took the lead in paying the workers' medical security fund, what courage did the remaining small and medium-sized factories have to resist the government's policy?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The government was, after all, the government, and capitalists were, after all, just capitalists. Wanting to rely on the power of capitalists to contend with the government was not something that could be done in the current environment of Spain.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The means for capitalists to contend with the government were nothing more than inciting workers to demonstrate. But the problem was, the Spanish workers at this time knew that this medical bill was for themselves, so they naturally could not listen to the orders of the capitalists to launch relevant protest demonstrations.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Coupled with the fact that the Workers' Party had become one of the choices for workers to express their own claims, if the capitalists really dared to incite workers to demonstrate, I am afraid they would be hung on the street lamps the next day.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>(End of this chapter)\u003C\u002Fp>",3269,"2026-06-25T09:27:14.599Z",1,"Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite","6372c6c98bf537fb20dc5ab28da82bc09e054ff2388d617be278712092e6e89b","rise-of-the-empire-spain-chapter-379","rise-of-the-empire-spain-chapter-377",493,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Frise-of-the-empire-spain-cover.jpg"]