COMPULSORY TAXES.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 55, Issue 124, 7 March 1935, Page 8

COMPULSORY TAXES.

MAINTENANCE OF HOSPITALS. CONFERENCE ..RECOMMENDATION (Per Press Association.) HASTINGS, March 6. Compulsory taxation as a means of raising sufficient funds to operate the hospitals of New Zealand for those who cannot afford to pay for treatment in private institutions rendering treatment free and abolishing the present method of local body taxation, formed the subject of several important decisions by the annual conference of the New Zealand Hospital Boards’ Association, in Napier to-day.

The executive submitted the following recommendations, which were adopted. The committee stated in presenting its submissions, that the scheme had been yiewed primarily for hospital and sickness insurance and it was not considering unemployment.

(1) That a national health insurance scheme is desirable.

(2) That such scheme should he compulsory. (3) That it should apply to all in receipt of salaries or wages, within a limit prescribed, between the ages of 16 and 65.

(4; That it should provide complete medical service, and should include general practitioner service, hospital benefit, consultant arid specialist services, maternity benefit, dental benefit, home nursing and such other types of medical care as seem desirable.

(5) That is should include the dependants insured. (6) That the scheme should be a contributory one, and the contributions should be at a rate which was regarded as suitable front an actuarial point of view. (7) That the payment of doctors should be at a flat rate so far as the general practitioner service is concerned, and according to the work done for specialist and consultative services.

(8) That tho insurance scheme could be fitted into our existing machinery, andi that in the Health Department and hospital boards we have now suitable agencies to represent partly or wholly the central Government and the local insurance committees. The conference resolved that the icport be forwarded to the Government, and recommended that legislation be passed to give effect to it.