The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun. TUESDAY, JUNE 13, 1939. SOCIAL SECURITY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 137, 13 June 1939, Page 8

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun.

TUESDAY, JUNE 13, 1939. SOCIAL SECURITY.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong that reeds resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that tee can do.

(iuvcinincnt officers are now compiling • 1 U-\ of lliixe who have failed to register iinilrr the Social Security Act. It is right 1 lull defaulters should be .-ought out and compelled to pay their taxes, for it would be intolerable if even a small proportion of people were allowed to dodge responsibilities which others are discharging. But while it- officers are rounding up defaulter:; among the people the Government should consider it-' own position. I'p to date it is ii-01l a partiiil defaulter. It undertook, and won ninny thousands of votes because it undertook, to provide the people with specified benefits. The people, as earners, and a section of them again, as taxpayers, were to provide the fund, and from the fund the (iovernment was to provide the benefits. Promptly on the due date the people began to pay their contributions, and just as promptly the Government began to pay the benefits, but only some of them. It is pitying the cash benefits, nearly all of which were paid before under other Acts and some of them under other names. But ! it undertook also to provide certain medical services—general practitioner, hospital, medicines and maternity. Of these only the last is in operation, and that only in part. Though the value of the maternity benefit to those who qualify for it is not to be discounted, it is by its nature the one for which the smallest number of people can qualify. The medical benefits for which the great majority of people might qualify (though against their wills) are not available. But the people are paying for them, and have been paying for them since ;i day which, purely by a coincidence, was All Fools' I)av.

N'imv it i- true th;it when it passed the Social Security Art the (iovcrnment took power to postpone the flnte of tlie inauguration of the medical benefits, and tor understandable reasons. It had not I hen made an agreement with the medical profession, without which the benefits cannot be provided. But it led the people to believe (and no doubt itself believed) that an agreement would be made, and at no distant date. It has not made an agreement, and there appears no prospect that there will be one. The Government's negotiations with the B.M.A. have broken down. The nature of the dispute between them is sufficiently well known, and no reference need be made to it here. Here we are concerned only to point out that the "third party," the public, not only was led to expect that the medical services would he available, but is paying for them. In the Government actuary's original report he estimated the total cost of all benefits in the first year at £17,850,000, of which the medical services were to cost £3,000,000. The Government is week by week collecting contributions, part of which are intended to provide that £3,000,000 for medical services, but it is not disbursing that part for that purpose. Is the money intended for medical services being set aside, or is it being disbursed in cash benefits? If it is being set aside, when does the Government hope to be able to disburse it in payment for the promised servicest If it has no hope, or none likely to be realised within a reasonable time, it has no moral right to go on taking the money, and the rate of contribution ought to be reduced bv at least •_',! in the £1.