Medicine: Ailing Health Plan

Britain’s womb-to-tomb National Health Service is in the red again. Last week Chancellor of the Exchequer Derick Heath-coat-Amory gave Commons the bad news: individual contributions will be upped, on July i, as much as 37%.

Before the N.H.S. was launched in 1948, optimists estimated that it would cost $490 million a year; of this, $355 million would come from general tax funds, the balance from individual contributions of up to about 20¢ a week. But the estimates proved woefully low.

Total costs have rocketed to an estimated $2 billion for the next fiscal year. To raise even one-fifth of this whopping bill (four-fifths will still come from taxes), the Chancellor set these new weekly rates: for employed men, 7¢ more, for a total of 26¢; employed women, 5¢more, total 19¢; employed juveniles (under 18), 2¢ more, total 12¢. In addition, employers’ fees will go up from 4¢ per worker to 6¢. For children not yet employed, the rate goes up 2¢ to a total of 16¢.

The Socialists promptly blasted the government for laying the added burden on the whole population, meaning that most of it would be borne by the well. Deliberately so, said Heathcoat-Amory: the government believed this was fairer than putting a still heavier burden on the sick, who are least able to bear it.