Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, MAY 3, 1939. WHO IS TO BLAME?

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 102, 3 May 1939, Page 10

Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, MAY 3, 1939. WHO IS TO BLAME?

The reply by Dr. Jamieson to the "odium" charge of the Minister of Health and the protest of a meeting of Christchurch women against the registration fee refer to different aspects of the Social Security scheme. Yet they are connected because they are both the consequence of the methods followed by the Government in framing the scheme without full and equitable

consideration of the interests of all classes involved. No doubt the Government will reply to the Christchurch women's protest by pointing to the many thousands who have registered and paid the fee, and by setting out on the one hand the benefits to be given and on the other the fee of five shillings. But this will not answer the protest. Thousands have certainly paid the fee, and with no threat of refusal or any direct protest, but many who are complying with the law feel that they are being taxed "unfairly, even if it is only to the extent of five shillings. Actually the registration fee is but a minor item in a long catalogue of inequities, as taxpayers will realise when the full account for the scheme is presented.

The finance of the scheme is unjust through and through. It is based on payment according to means, and it withholds benefits from those who pay most. Some of the women who are protesting may be called upon to pay only the five, shillings registration fee, but their household economy will be seriously affected by the payments required from their husbands and sons. As we have pointed out previously, those who are striving to make independent provision for dependants and old age will be taxed upon the income of that provision and at the same time will be deprived of the benefits that would accrue to them if they were less thrifty and deserving. The i weight of the taxation and the penalty imposed is not yet known. At present it may be a shilling in the pound and a registration fee; but we have yet to see what part of the cost of the scheme is to come from the Consolidated Fund and the general taxpayer, and how taxation for this purpose is levied. It is to ( be feared that the injustice of the Social Security tax will be repeated and even made greater by demanding from payers of income tax a disproportionate share of the cost. This introduction of a means test is entirely at variance with the promises of the Government, and notably those of the Minister of Finance (of a universal pension scheme) and the present Acting Minister of Social Security (of benefits payable as of right without regard to means).

The difference with medical profession springs from the Government's disregard of the views of the profession when making its. plans. As Dr. Jamieson points out: "The scheme is the Government's scheme and not that of the medical profession. When drawing up that scheme the Government completely disregarded the representations of the New Zealand branch of the British Medical Association on the subject." This was a cardinal error. Surely the profession which would be required to take a most important part in the operation of the scheme should have been the Government's principal adviser in deciding what form that scheme should take. Would the Government have followed a similar course if any section of organised labour had been concerned? Would it have attempted to ride roughshod over the workers in any industry by imposing upon them a plan vitally affecting their whole work? We are convinced that it would not. The medical profession is entitled not to less consideration but more, for it has by honorary, self-sacrificing service amply demonstrated in the past that it is actuated by the highest ideals of public welfare. Its representations can be accepted as guided, not by selfinterest, but by thought for the public good.

Examination of the differences between the profession and the Government affords full proof of this. The profession never gave an unqualified negative to the Government's proposals for a health scheme. It submitted instead an alternative with reasons for its proposals. There was never the least suggestion that service should be denied to those unable to pay for it. On the con-

trary, the medical profession proposed that such people should have, not a partial, but a complete scheme of medical service. Nor was it suggested that others with ability to pay should be denied benefit. They were to be given assistance when they most needed it, when the necessity for specialist or surgical treatment or long illness taxed their means. Speaking from wide experience in dealing with all classes of patients, the profession claimed that such a scheme would be "more equitable and more progressive than the Government's plan for a free general practitioner service for everyone. The Government refused to accept this advice. It persisted in following its own plan. It cannot now blame the medical profession for declining to co-operate in a scheme which it believes to be directly conducive to a lowering of medical standards and therefore against the public interest. No matter how the issue may be camouflaged, the fault lies with the Government for its obstinate refusal to accept advice or pay heed to those whose lifetime of experience qualified them to give it. j