Hospital Operation By Compulsory Tax

Manawatu Times, Volume 60, Issue 56, 8 March 1935, Page 7

Hospital Operation By Compulsory Tax

PROPOSAL TO GOVERNMENT 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, the rendering of treatment free, and the abolishing of 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.

Tho executive submitted the following recommendations, eight of which were adopted, and pointed out that in presenting its submissions tho scheme had been viewed primarily for hospitals and sickness insurance and the committee was not considering unemployment:—

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

(2) That such a scheme should be compulsory. (3) That it should apply lo all in receipt of salaries or wages below the present income tax limit. (4) That it should apply to all j>ersons in receipt of salaries or wages within the limit prescribed between the ages of 16 and 65. (5) That it should provide complete medical service and should include general practitioner service, hospital benefit, consultant and specialist services, maternity benefit, dental benefit, home nursing, and such other types of medical care as seemed desirable.

(G) That it should include depend ants of those insured. •

(7) That the scheme should be a contributory one and that contributions should be at a rate which was regarded as suitable from an actuarial point of view.

(8) That the payment of the doctor should be at a fiat rate so far as the general practitioner service was concerned and according to the work done for specialist and consultative services.

(9) That freedom of choice as between doctor and patient which is such an important part of the scheme in England, should bo incorporated in any New Zealand scheme.

(10) That the insurance scheme could be fitted into our existing machinery and that in the Health Department and hospital boards we havo up to now suitable agencies lo partly or wholly represent tho central government and local insurance committees.

The conference resolved lhat (he report be forwarded to the Government urging that legislation be passed to give effect to it.