THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1950. UNSTABLE SECURITY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27507, 29 September 1950, Page 6

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1950. UNSTABLE SECURITY

The report of the Department of Health on the still rising cost of health benefits under the Social Security scheme can occasion no surprise, but it may well cause dismay. What is happening is that after only a few years’ operations, and with several types of benefit still to be introduced or extended, Social Security is becoming a charge greater than the people will be able to continue to meet. The cost of “ free ” medicine, which has risen by more than a quarter of a million pounds in the last year, represents one of the most wasteful aspects of the scheme. The average householder, regarding the varied medicaments, unused or half-used, in the bathroom cabinet does not need to be told that. Thousands of pounds’ worth of prescription drugs are being wasted' through overprescribing and public lavishness in demands for medicines which they seem to imagine , they do not pay for. But pharmaceutical benefits are an item which it is to be hoped may be reduced, along with medical costs, 'under the reformed scheme now in force. If the new dispensation as between doctor and patient proves not to be effectual in bringing down the charges, then obviously further revision must be undertaken. Any form of exploitation under provisions for the public benefit, and for which the public pays twice over—in direct Social Security taxation and again in general taxation—must be curbed. There will remain the great burden of payments in respect of hospital maintenance, sickness benefits, superannuation benefits, family benefits, all of which form a part of Socialism’s political health-giving scheme. Payment of the age benefit, which is the pre-Labour old-age pension under another name, is just and right. The only reasonable reform here is to assure that the benefit does not penalise the thrifty, and encourage the improvident, and this need the Government is aware of. .The rise in the amount paid out in sickness benefits, which has quadrupled in a decade, means either that the nation’s health is getting worse under a beneficent health scheme,, or that malingering is increasing. This position -needs careful study and contEQl. There remain the child benefit, which is paid out without respect to the financial position of the parents, and the “universal” benefit. These are costly benefits, which can be of little value to those in good circumstances. A means test would effect a saving, and deserves consideration, not so much because these needless pay-outs are imperilling Social Security now as because, with an ageing population, the “ universal ” benefit must either be eventually discontinued or it will wreck the economy of the welfare services. There is hard, unpalatable common sense in the observations of the director of clinical services, Dr Cook, upon the precarious position of medical and pharmaceutical services, which may well be applied to the whole Social Security scheme. If it is not rationalised it will collapse under its own weight, for it seeks to provide the people with insurance beyond any actuarial table of risks.

HOUSING THE PEOPLE A population that has everywhere outgrown its living accommodation is not likely to have much sympathy with the. obstructive tactics which the Labour Party is employing to oppose the Government’s plan of temporary housing. Arguments against temporary and transit housing there might be, but none so cogent as those in favour of putting roofs over the heads of thousands of people who at present live in conditions of squalor, in caravans or in makeshift dwellings in every city of New Zealand. Few of these people can afford to build at present inflated costs, and to condemn them to live longer than is absolutely necessary in circumstances which expose them to physical and mental suffering—as the Labour Party apparently would do—would be a heartless act on the part of the Administration. While building construction proceeds at its present leisurely rate years must elapse before sufficient State or privately constructed homes are erected to meet the accumulated demand. In the meantime a great many people must suffer inconvenience or positive hardship, and the present Government is simply accepting a duty which its predecessor neglected in attempting to alleviate in some measure the conditions these families must endure.

Despite Mr Fraser’s denial it is difficult to believe that the objections heard in the House were not due to the fact that the tail of the Parliamentary Labour Party is being twisted by certain unions. Unreasoning opposition to the scheme was declared at a recent meeting of carpenters’, bricklayers’ and plumbers’ unions in Christchurch, when the decision was made to seek the support of members of the Opposition in making the protest effective. The solicitude then expressed for the public interest was, on the face of it, commendable, though rather unconvincing. The co-operation of all building unions in the task of overcoming the desperate housing shortage is urgently required, but the people have not forgotten that one section of the Carpenters’ Union wilfully deprived the country of hundreds of houses through strike tactics last year, , and that some sections openly gloated at having given a minimum labour return for the wage paid. Such methods, together with the present threat to decline work on temporary housing, suggest that in some quarters of organised Labour there is little real concern for the people who are condemned to live in substandard conditions. If the Parliamentary Opposition continues to exhibit an equal lack of interest, instead of urging on its unionist supporters the need to help in this crisis, the plight of the homeless families will become desperate indeed.