Prescription charges
Sir,—With the Cancer Society collection this week we should look at the record of this Government. Cancer sufferers now have to pay either $5 or $2 a prescription item and could pay for up to 50 items in a row if the twenty-fifth issue was in December. Donations to the society are no longer tax-deductible and the society pays GST when these funds are spent. How much money does the Government actually make out of these victims and financial support of the public? If you add diabetics, epileptics, arthritics, hyperten-
sives, sufferers from mental illnesses, asthmatics, etc., and realise that these sufferers are now specifically selected to pay this tax on prescriptions, not because of income but because of their illness, we have to ask is this what the public wants? Can we expect a Government that has selected these sufferers to accept an additional financial burden to develop a social and moral conscience and support them? When I wrote to Mr Caygill and objected to the logic of this tax on these sufferers and its consequences, I was told that
"... your concerns are exaggerated.” How can they be? — Yours, etc., BRUCE MCINTOSH, M.P.S. February 5,1989.
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Press, 9 February 1989, Page 18
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198Prescription charges Press, 9 February 1989, Page 18
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