HOSPITAL COSTS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 March 1939, Page 4

HOSPITAL COSTS

REPLY TO FARMERS’ UNION BY MR JORDAN INFORMATION FROM OFFICIAL SOURCES. BASIS OF STRIKING LEyiES. In answer to the official statement issued by the Farmers' Union regarding hospital costs, Mr T. Jordan, President of the Municipal Association, states that the figures quoted by him at the Dunedin Conference were compiled by the Health Department in 1935 and represented the levies made upon local bodies for the year 1934-35. They were the latest figures at the; time Mr Jordan made his request to the Department for them.

“The incidence of the levy has not been altered in the meantime,” said Mr Jordan, “although the actual amounts have increased considerably. The percentage as between urban and the rural areas would be approximately the same today. The fact that the figures appear to have caused some alarm to the Farmers’ Union seems fully to justify their publication.

“At the conference between the Municipal Association, the Counties’ Association and the Hospitals’ Association held in February, 1936, to discuss the incidence of hospital taxation,” said Mr Jordan, “the chairman of the counties’ Association. Mr C. J. Talbot, who presided, placed on the order paper, inter alia, two remits including the population factor. 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 a population basis and as to 50 per cent on a valuation 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 has had the substantial and disinterested suupport of the Commissioner of Taxes since 1923 when he concludued an enquiry into the incidence and computation of hospital levies with these words: ‘To adopt the population as a factor for rating purposes would be wholly indefensible.’

“At my request prior to the conference of 1936,” said Mr Jordan, “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. The three associations were unanimous that the proper basis upon which the hospital levy should be made was ability to pay, in other words, upon salaries and wages. To press that view is the object of the deputation from the Municipal Association and the Counties’ Association waiting upon the Minister during the week. The legislature has already adopted this basis in its Social Security Act which provides for part only of the hospital expenditure of the day.”