APPORTIONMENT OF HOSPITAL COSTS

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 144, 14 March 1939, Page 11

APPORTIONMENT OF HOSPITAL COSTS

Ability To Pay As Basis EFFECT OF POPULATION FACTOR By Telegraph—Press Association. MASTERTON; March 13. Iu answer to an official statement issued by the Farmers’ Union, the president of the Municipal Association, Mr. T. Jordan, states that the final figures quoted by him at the Dunedin conference in connexion with the allocation of hospital costs were compiled by the Department of Health in 1935 and represented levies made on local bodies for the year 1934-35. They were the latest figures at the time. Mr. Jordan said the incidence of the levy had not been altered in the meantime. Though the amounts had increased considerably, the percentage as between urban and rural areas would be approximately the same today. The fact that the figures appeared to have caused some alarm to the Farmers’ Union seemed fully to justify their publication. Conference in 1936. At a conference between the Municipal Association, the Counties’ Association, and the Hospitals’ Association, held in February, 1936, to discuss the incidence of hospital taxation, the chairman of the Counties’ Association, Mr. Talbot, who presided, placed on the order paper, inter alia, two remits, including the population factor, said Mr. Jordan. The first was that the levy on each local body should be assessed entirely on a population basis, and the second that it should be assessed as to 50 per cent, on population basis. The chairman stated, and it was recorded in the minutes, that these remits had been included in order to have them dealt with for all time, and they were unanimously struck out by the three associations. The attitude of the Municipal Association to these remits had had the support of the Commissioner of Taxes since 1925, when he concluded an inquiry into the incidence and computation of hospital levies with these words: “To adopt population as a factor for rating purposes would be 'wholly indefensible.” At Mr. Jordan’s request, before the conference of 1936, the department had taken out figures for some of the hospital districts, including the population, factor, and these showed that the effect would be materially to lessen the burden on the larger and more prosperous boroughs and counties at the expense of those much less able to pay. Ability to Fay. The three associations were unanimous that a proper basis on which the hospital levy should be made was the ability to pay—in other words, upon salaries and wages. To press that view was the object of a deputation from the Municipal Association and the Counties’ Association, which will ■wait on the Minister during this week. The Legislature had already adopted this, basis in its Social Security Act, which provided for part only of the hospital expenditure of the day, concluded Mr. Jordan.