I’m alright Jack
During the 2014 Election campaign, New Zealand First announced a policy of giving Gold Card holders 3 free doctor’s visits a year. We thought this was pretty sound policy, the merits of which would outright speak for themselves.
As I’ve blogged earlier this week, pensioners are on fixed and pretty limited incomes. Doctor’s visits are expensive. There’s therefore a huge disincentive for pensioners to go visit their local GP for a regular checkup – or even in cases wherein there’s clearly something wrong.
That’s bad. And not just for the pensioners in question. At the forefront of EVERY policymaker’s political consciousness and conscience ought to be how the state can help alleviate the suffering and improve the lives of all our citizens – particularly vulnerable Kiwis like pensioners.
But there’s also a cold, hard fiscal-financial reason for advocating such a policy, as well.
Early interventions don’t just save lives. They save cash and hospital resources, too. If we can get to a problem at the GP-level – and treat it early – then that means the patient doesn’t have to be referred on up the chain to a hospital because things have already gotten more serious.
It also leaves hospitals with more time and resources to deal with emergencies, and other patients with immediately urgent health concerns. And all thanks to a quick visit to the GP detecting the problem earlier – and starting management of it accordingly.
In other words, it’s a totally common sense and widely popular policy.
And I should therefore be *entirely unsurprised* that National, Peter Dunne, and ACT have done everything in their power to prevent it from happening.
Winston Peters put forward a bill to make our policy a reality. Had it passed, it would have been a simple and effective way of looking after our old people while reducing hospital wait-times and healthcare costs to both consumers and taxpayers.
Unfortunately, despite each of the Labour Party, the Green Party and even the Maori Party coming together to support New Zealand First’s bill … it failed last night in the House. By ONE vote. A single conscience which ought to hang heavy for standing in the way of alleviating misery for tens of thousands of older New Zealanders.
And what justification did the right-wing knife-edge cossacks cite for denying the bill’s passage? Cost.
Because apparently, having preventable illnesses dealt with in our hospitals costs less than having those same problems detected and treated at a far earlier stage thanks to a GP. Because the absolutely minuscule fiscal cost of giving Gold Card holders 3 free doctor’s visits a year is an unjustifiable expense and the Government would MUCH rather count a mounting cost in human turmoil and misery from our elderly instead.
Because that’s what Neoliberalism is all about. A stupid, short-sighted strangulation of an over-emphasis on short-term immediately apparent “costs” while ignoring utterly and completely the larger and long-term savings in both monetary and mortal (if not outright mortality) terms. And an absolute emphatic insistence upon “user pays” – even when the “users” in question might lack the funds or the fortitude to do something as simple as shelling out the cost of a doctor’s visit.
Make no mistake. What we saw last night in The House was the true face of this government. One that doesn’t care one iota about the actual wellbeing of some of its most vulnerable citizens when there’s an imaginary “surplus” it can ride off in pursuit of.
Having said that, it wasn’t just National, ACT and United Future prepared to sacrifice ease of access to medical care for the elderly to the surplus-slasher’s knife come the last Election. Labour, too, announced a similar policy to NZF’s (as per usual, we thank them for knowing a good idea when they see one) … but then revoked it once again in quixotic pursuit of surplus.
In a spirit of fairness, I should therefore like to congratulate the Labour Party for recanting on their earlier policy commitments and choosing to put people before bottom lines in supporting New Zealand First on this issue.
In any case, given the Government was good enough to adopt *another* NZ First inspired policy in the form of free doctor’s visits for under-13s as part of its most recent Budget … it’s plainly apparent that they already get the logic behind preventative medicine and early interdiction.
So I guess we’re left asking: If they were prepared to do something to help their target support demographic of young families … why are they not prepared to do something very similar to help *our* perceived main support demographic in the form of the elderly?
Is it because they’re playing politics with the people’s health?
Sorry, I know it’s serious, but this is my caption contribution- “Be wit me, Girl. C’mon….you know dis is real”.
As I have said before – most people reading TDB know that National have not a care in the world for actual New Zealand citizens – it’s getting the rest of the country to discover this fact, that is the problem. National are running the country into the ground, causing alot of suffering and yet people keep voting for them…. Having right wing MSM certainly doesn’t help – but getting that ‘they don’t care’ message across is the solution.
I remember years ago, some one in parliament (can’t remember who, sadly) announced that good ol’ Kiwiland was going to change its health system, from the secondary-type care of the time, to primary health care. Yay, I thought, about time. I was concerned with the time frame proposed as it seemed a little too long for my liking. I shouldn’t have been worried about that timeline at all. It never happened. Its demise didn’t even sound a whimper, never mind a bang. Now it seems someone is hell-bent on getting us to third-world health care.
It’s par for the course with this government and their sycophantic allies, that given the choice between a human life and a dollar bill, they’ll go for the cash almost every single time.
“Fuck the peasantry, I’m off to do a few laps in my swimming pool full of money.”
” Because that’s what Neoliberalism is all about. A stupid, short-sighted strangulation of an over-emphasis on short-term immediately apparent “costs” while ignoring utterly and completely the larger and long-term savings in both monetary and mortal (if not outright mortality) terms. And an absolute emphatic insistence upon “user pays” – even when the “users” in question might lack the funds or the fortitude to do something as simple as shelling out the cost of a doctor’s visit. ”
What user pays means is everything becomes a commodity to be bought and sold in God Market’s market place. If you can’t buy you don’t get! This vile anti social attitude appeared with Sir Let’
s Roger New Zealand Douglas.All of this rubbish ideology comes from that massive failed state the U$. And who’s that malign failed states best friend here? John Key.The U$ treats its poorer people no better than trash.
Of course they’re playing politics with the peoples health.
Hell – they don’t give a damn if its a toddler in south Auckland , youth suicide rates , the elderly …
You see…they can afford PRIVATE HOSPITALS.
Do you really expect them to share a ward for open heart surgery with the filthy unwashed peasantry?
Not on your Nellie , old son !!! That would never do !!!!
And pretty soon most health practices will be privatized. And if you haven’t got the cash – your plain out of luck.
And when they sign up to TTPA and TISA , they can then manipulate and bully down PHARMAC to curry favor with the giant corporate American drug manufacturers – and if you cant afford the new drugs imposed on us – stiff shit.
Your out on your ear , kid.
But it wont affect them . Oh no….certainly not . They will simply put the new drug therapy’s on their tab and go private .
You cant expect the rich and the right wing politicians to die like a stray dog like the rest of the disgusting peasants, now can you.
Heaven forbid !!!! . What would the neighbors think?
Possibly more choice and private access to health services would benefit people, more than excessive numbers of state funded nurses, social workers and police. In the UK George Osborne has cut and attempted to cut these so called social services massively. But even socialist Gordon Brown as UK Treasurer and PM opted to give the public the choice to select their own doctors, while here Helen Clark moved to lock patients into one doctor if they were beneficiaries. Brown also attempted to have psychiatric consultations transfered from being a specialists monopoly to being a GP service. Pharmac here actually greatly limits the range and type of drug available in NZ with many new intermediate psychiatic drugs which are move effective smoothers and became available after the mid 1990s not being funded. Priority for Pharmac and the Government actually appears to be oldies health and voters and to place the non workers and beneficiaries as the lowest priority. But a problem with the current approach is that half the actual workers in the workforce and not productive because they are or were never good enough and therefore categorising people in NZ is a dangerous business because the range of jobs is limited and the council and government concentrate on creaing low grade filler jobs.
“the government concentrate on creating low grade filler jobs ”
Is that what they concentrate on? I thought it was stealing public assets and fucking children.
“socialist Gordon Brown”
This statement makes it quite clear that HighTory is simply living in a parallel universe, not the one the rest of us inhabit. Once you understand that, the rest of their comment makes a strange sort of sense. As Bruce Jesson put it so beautifully, only their purpose is mad…
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