HOSPITAL RATING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 July 1938, Page 8

HOSPITAL RATING

PRESENT AND PROPOSED \ SYSTEMS OBSERVATIONS BY MR T. JORDAN. LEVY ON EARNINGS URGED. Some observations of interest on the incidence and system of hospital rating in New Zealand were made today by the Mayor, Mr T. Jordan, speaking as president of the New Zealand Municipal Association. , “I was interested in the discussion that took place at the last meeting of the Masterton County Council concerning the proposal made by the Kairanga County Council that the Government should be approached and asked for a considerable increase in the subsidy paid to hospital boards,” said Mr Jordan. “For many years the present system of rating for hospital purposes on the capital value of land has been a burning question between the boroughs and counties. Instead of this, the counties were asking for the hospital levy to be raised on a population basis. In reply the boroughs pointed out that apart from other considerations the effect of such a method would be to disregard the capacity of the people in the particular local authority to pay; and an analysis of the figures based on population showed that the poorer’ boroughs and counties would pay at a much heavier rate in the £1 than the more fortunate ones. Thus the rate in the borough of Huntly would be more than twice as great as the rate in Hamilton and in the poor county of Taupo the rate would be nearly twice as great as that in Waipa county. In our own district I have had the figures taken out in similar fashion and the result would be that Masterton Borough would pay a rate less than two-thirds of what Featherston would pay in the £l. OPPOSITION FORTIFIED. “We were fortified in our < opposition to the proposal of the counties,”

said Mr Jordan, “by a report furnished by the Commissioner of Taxes in 1923. In this, after referring to the existing system of rating on capital value and the proposal to adopt a population basis he concludes by saying this: ‘To adopt population as the factor for rating purposes would, I think, be wholly indefensible.’ The disparity between the amounts contributed by the counties and the boroughs is not nearly as great as some would have us believe. Thus in the year 1934-35 of the total levy on local bodies for hospital purposes the counties actually paid only 49 per cent and the boroughs the remaining 51 per cent. The counties, however, contain only 40.36 per cent of the population and the boroughs 59.64 per cent. The whole question was discussed at a conference of representatives of the Hospitals’ Association, the Counties’ Association and the Municipal Association in February, 1936. The order paper for this conference was prepared by the Counties’ Association and the resolutions included the population factor for hospital rating. The chairman of the meeting, Mr Talbot, of the Counties’ Association, stated that these resolutions had been set down ‘in order to have them dealt with for all time.’ They were unani-

mously struck out by the meeting and the conference unanimously passed a resolution supporting a compulsory national scheme for health insurance based in effect upon earnings, that is, upon the capacity to pay. This principle has been in fact adopted in the proposed Government social security scheme which is to be financed so far as the individual is concerned by wages and salary tax of Is in the £l. SUGGESTION-TO MINISTER. “When the Actuary, Mr Maddex, presented his report to the Parliamentary Committee,” Mr Jordan continued, “no mention .was made of the present hospital rate levied upon rate-, payers and amidst all his figures no credit was given on the receipts side for the large sum, approximately three-quarters of a million, at present levied from this source. When before the committee, I asked the Minister of Finance if he proposed to do away with the present hospital rate when the new scheme was in operation and he replied in the negative. I then said that all the local bodies were agreed that the present system of raising the levy on property irrespective of its earning power was unfair. With this he agreed and I then asked why he did not adopt it for the whole of the moneys required for hospital purposes and thus relieve the ratepayer. His reply to this was that he could not do it all at once. “In view of the Minister’s admission,” said Mr Jordan, “I have, as President of the Municipal Association, offered to make common cause with the Counties’ Association to ask the Minister in his Social Security Bill to do the justice that he admits ought to be done and by providing for all hospital wants out of the wages and salary levy, plus the grant from the Consolidated Fund, to equalise the burden on the community. I have suggested that the Kairanga proposal should be dropped and that a combined deputation of rural and urban local authorities should wait upon the Minister. I am hopeful that this will yet be done.”