Of the multitude of things to complain about and offer resistance to at the moment it seems a real indulgence to spend time on feedback to the ACC on their proposed levy changes
Rennie, D & St John S (2024) Should ACC levies be raised? PIE Commentary 2024-6 20th September
ACC alleges a shortfall of $1-2 billion in ACC funding and that levies have to rise to fund future injury costs. Without levy increases, they argue the excess burden of today’s injuries would be passed on to future generations. Rises for each of next three years of more than seven per cent per annum for motorists, and more than four per cent for employers and earners are proposed see ACC’s proposals: consultative document..
Public submissions close on 9 October 2024 with final decisions to be made by the government in December. Does anybody care? They should- these are not minor changes and will hurt low-income workers.
For example, currently the earners levy is $1.39—ACC is proposing it to be raised in stages to $1.59 by 2027/28. Including GST, the rate in 3 year’s time will be 1.83%.
Compare that with Medicare Australia, a national scheme providing citizens (and some overseas visitors) with free or subsidised health services. Costs are largely paid for by the Medicare levy that is 2%. And there are all sorts of exemptions and protections for low income earners. There are no such protections for low income New Zealanders- ACC is levied on the very first dollar earned.
The financing of ACC is seriously convoluted especially as the emphasis for past 25 years has been on making the scheme more like private insurance. The three main accounts, motor vehicle, workers and earners accounts with levies that are set according to risk and can be potentially adjusted under experience rating with discounts and penalties to encourage and reward safe behaviour. Each scheme requires ‘full funding’ so reserves could met all future costs of all accidents that have already occurred.
The social insurance scheme that Sir Owen Woodhouse originally intended had flat rate levies and a modest cushion of reserves to tide the scheme over natural disasters. One of the key Woodhouse principles is prevention: there are many ways outside of the experience rating model to encourage safety, discourage risky behaviour and thus reduce the costs of accidents.
Given there will not be an overnight change to the fundamental expensive insurance-based structure of ACC the question is- should levies just be increased as ACC suggests? Such increases may look attractive to government operating austerity fiscal policy as increases will make the government’s books look better.
Warren Forster, legal expert on ACC, argues that the so-called blow-out is attributable to poor rehabilitation practices. Those in turn are due to changes to case management in recent years that have been a failure and are now being reversed. The ACC Futures Coalition also suspects that a failure to invest adequately in prevention lies at the heart of the problem.
The real reasons for any underperformance should be investigated before ACC passes forward preventable costs into levies. Moreover, ACC is exceptionally well-funded, at $47 billion. adherence to a rigid fully funding model is inappropriate especially for these uncertain economic times. An increase of $1-2 billion in levies would further hurt an economy already reeling from several years of natural disasters, the pandemic, cost of living crisis and a chronic recession.
To achieve other goals such as equity a case may be made adjustments to the way motorcycles, sports and e-vehicles are levied, but ACC should not request the government to approve a general increase in ACC levies. Submitters should feedback to ACC with urgency.
ACC’s reserves should be allowed to fluctuate between a band over the economic cycle, while any under-performance issues are addressed. There is no danger of putting the scheme in jeopardy.
Unfortunately, you can restlessly be assured that with the current ACC CEO, She’ll be “on the same page” with this CoC.
Fresh from INZ/MoBIE where she fucked up most things she touched and micromanaged.
Her ilk keep certain public servants sweet by telling them how wonderful they are, and showering them with their personal development ‘needs’ over and above serving THE PUBLIC.
Roll on true PS/Civil Service reform.
ACC’s a scam. Nu Zillind’s a scam. National is a dull party of cheap bald scammers. ( PM has seven rental properties for Gods sake.) Labour hasn’t existed since roger dung-beetle douglas rolled it over then gutted it in 1984 so it’s now nothing more than a useless scam feeding YOUR money to useless hangers-on scammers. Our social infrastructure’s a scam. Our broader politics is a scam. Electricity prices are a scam. Public transport is a scam. Our district councils are mini-me scammers scamming people over rates and subcontracted out services. Our only airline’s a scam. Our house prices are a scam as are our building codes which are scams created by scammers to use to scam us with.
No matter what you go near you’re going to get scammed. 14 multi-billionaires, 3118 multi-millionaires each with a minimum $50 million after tax and the four now foreign owned banks are scamming us to the dubious levels of being proud of the fact that they’re now the second most profitable scammer-banksters in the world next only to Canada. They steal $180.00 a second NET 24/7/365 for fucks sake while pensioners try to function on $500.00 a week after being scammed for all their lives by the same banks that rort, extort and steal from then . How is that NOT A FUCKING SCAM?
We need a very,very,very public royal commission of inquiry to go up the scammers like a meth rat scrambling ahead of a meth ferret up their arse holes.
The AO/NZ you see out your window? It’s all fucking wrong man. We have tons of money. We have giga-tons of valuable, vital resources and there’s only 5.2 million of us in total on a land area larger that the UK by 29 thousand square kilometres and we’re being scammed out of it and its essential resources while we politely dodge around the wretched homeless barely surviving in ugly street doorways and yet voters fawned at the feet of an abusive, bald, ugly cunt banking OUR $ 484,000.00 in PM salaries.
( As at 2024, the prime minister’s salary is set at NZ$484,200. In addition, like all other ministers and MPs, the prime minister receives annual allowances for travel and lodging, as do the prime minister’s spouse and children.) and the fucker STILL tried to rort us of that other $52,000.00. SCAM ! Sure, he was Mr Mysty eyed tewwibly sowy and paid us back but only AFTER he was sprung.
I’m saving your missive for pudding T-Cell. Or am going to wrap it in phosphorescent film and send it as missile to Israel to fire at somebody who is in their way. It must be put to good use somewhere. I think I will read it in bits along with my spicy noodles which somehow seem the right side-dish.
Cheers.
Thank you for sharing, Killer white T-Cell. Do you feel better now?
3rd September 2024 update.
New additions at NUMBER 15 AND 16
THIS IN ITS ENTIRETY HAS GONE TO THE GREEN PARTY.
After July 23rd 2024 developments at Health NZ and the Govts blatant underfunding of health budget that has been exposed of around 3% not allowing for cost increases population growth etc and underfunding it by 5% minimum for the 24/25 year. Surely it is time to think outside the box on our primary healthcare model? My updated Ideas along with ideas from Ian Powell ex Association of Surgical and Medical Specialists union President to fix long term illness and health welfare funding.
1 : Create a Medicare agency including accidents and long term illness ( long term being anything outside of your sick leave entitlement).
2 : Place a Medicare Agency social worker in every Doctors surgery ( Why because of the increased workload because of idea 5 6 7 and 9 ).
3 : Fund ALL PRIMARY CARE MEDICINES through the Medicare Agency ( Pharmac funded or otherwise).
4 : Fund all long term illness welfare funding through the Medicare agency ( ie 80% of Minimum wage benefit) or a Guaranteed minimum income.
5 : Remove all Long term Welfare illness funding from Winz.
6 : Remove all the relationship rules and limits for all long term welfare illness and disability benefits.
7 ; Remove the requirement for 2nd opinion doctors reports as the ACC social worker can discuss it directly with your doctor at the clinic.
8; Create the agency within the New remodelled Agency of compassionate care to cut double agency costs.
9; The Agency organises specialist appointments and where an operation in a public hospital can’t be done in a timely manner arranges it in the private sector at Governments cost. As is currently done in some previous DHB area’s This should be arranged before leaving the Doctors surgery/clinic.
10; All items on a Prescription ( Funded or Unfunded) should count towards the 20 count, including any repeats, to get Free meds after 20 items
11; Remove restrictions on diagnostic and maintenance testing that patients require for effective medication dosing purposes.
12; All ACC SOCIAL WORKERS at a doctors surgery issue a patient with a medicines swipe card to swipe at a pharmacy. This card to be given on the first visit to a pharmacy.
Remove the $5 per item prescription fee and introduce a ACC medicare levy on all income earners over the age of 17
$1 levy = $156 million a year on 3 million income earners.
$5 levy = $780 million a year on 3 million income earners.
This levy to be used to replace the prescription fee charge and fund all unfunded medicines until a funding can be arranged through Pharmac.
Also cover Gp Co-payment fees
Why the card ?
This is to keep track of the total number of medicines prescribed in any given year and the total cost involved . This means all costs will be available from one agency and not as now spread over multiple Dept’s who have no idea whatsoever of the total dollar cost of unfunded medicines prescribed each year .
13 ; Dr visit fees and unfunded Medicines then be funded by the medicare levy, which replaces the current acc levies, we all pay to the Medicare agency including beneficiaries.
14; The medicare agency buys up retiring doctors clinics whose staff are not interested in buying the current clinic they are employed in and the Medicare agency overtime builds a nationwide health Hub GP clinic network that runs on the low cost funding model.
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2024/05/03/guest-blog-ian-powell-policy-vacuum-enables-for-profit-corporate-general-practice-ownership-by-stealth/ https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2024/07/08/guest-blog-ian-powell-corporate-general-practice-ownership-highlights-unintended-perverse-outcome/
Acc FUNDED Rural GP Scholarships.
15 : Acc offers Gp university scholarships that pay the living wage for the entire length of the 8 years of study including any textbooks.
16 Acc funded scholarship students are bonded for 8 years to a ACC rural clinic after finishing their University degree.
NZ Govt owned medicines production plant.
The new medicare agency charges Pharmac with the responsibility of building OUR OWN MEDICINES PRODUCTION FACILITY.
I have been told in NZ in 2019/20 $115 billion was spent on Medical research approximately 1/3rd of our total GDP so why are we buying generic and importing them ? . When we could be producing our own at a much lower cost. https://otaihangasecondopinion.wordpress.com/2021/06/25/lets-manufacture-our-own-pharmaceuticals/
17; Develop our own vaccines.
https://otaihangasecondopinion.wordpress.com/2021/07/22/doctors-call-for-vaccine-development-in-new-zealand/
https://otaihangasecondopinion.wordpress.com/2022/08/28/time-for-new-zealand-to-learn-from-cuba-on-vaccine-production/
18 Hire powered wheelchairs be available through acc for people with disabilities not caused by accident.
Remember that this ACC would be a complete remodeling of the current model and would be basically a primary care agency not just an accident agency. This agency in the finished model would involve PRIVATE and STATE OWNED medical hubs working to reduce hospital admissions to major hospitals. In Rural and Suburban areas . And therefore reducing major health costs at the front end.
19; The reformed Acc / Pharmac and Medicines plant be legislatively prohibited from being sold into private interests.
Along with a binding Public referendum being required where a minimum 80% yes vote IN THE REFERENDUM and 80% Yes vote BEING REQUIRED BY MP’S OF ALL PARTIES REPRESENTED IN PARLIAMENT being required before any legislation being introduced to privatise the reformed Medicare model.
Why I support this: I support the idea because of multiple reasons.
1 It removes Pharmac medicines funding from the politics of funding.
2 Under Green party the new reformed ACC will operate as a pay as you go funding format, Not as currently operated with all patients pre funded until age 65.
3 This fact alone will release in excess of $60 billion NZ dollars in 2020 dollars to establish the pharmaceutical plant and fund unfunded meds along with the Medicare levy which would go to ACC not the Govts consolidated fund as at present.
4 Building the pharmaceutical plant and being govt owned it will enable nz researched and developed meds to be produced onshore and bring royalties into and enable more onshore medical research to be funded through the new reformed ACC. Also produce more funds and reduce costs and ensure continuous supply.
If CUBA CAN DO IT WE CAN DO IT !!!
5 The major reason this needs to happen is ; With the destruction of the payday loans companies and the changing of lending rules it removed the ability of 10s of thousands of sufferers every week the ability to access funds to pay for medications .
So never again do we have the supply fiasco as happened during 2019 -2020 and 2021 epidemic. It is all about thinking outside today’s square boxes and status quo’s deliberately set up to prevent all the above. For those who say ACC should be accident only. “ACC is fundamentally accident insurance, to avoid costly litigation for personal injury. It should no been seen as an alternative option due to inadequate funding of the current health system and PHARMAC”
It was always envisaged it would be extended when the occasion and or conditions arose to also include sickness and disease.
This was 52 years ago.
The Green party embraced this fact 6 years ago and made it party policy in 2020.
Strategic Priorities
The Green Party’s strategic goals include:
“High quality healthcare (…) will be available to all.”
Actions in this policy that will help achieve this include:
Initiate a Law Commission review of the Accident Compensation Act to bring the operational detail into line with the purpose, and the Woodhouse Principles of community responsibility, comprehensive entitlements, complete rehabilitation, real compensation, and administrative efficiency. (1.1)
Ensure income support and rehabilitation support for disabled people and people with injuries are equitably provided based on need, through an extension of the ACC scheme into an Agency for Comprehensive Care that includes income support and treatment for injuries, disability and illnesses, no matter the origin. (2.1)
Revoke requirements of co-payments to treatment providers. (2.6)
Ensure earnings-related compensation is cut only when a claimant can realistically obtain and sustain suitable work. (2.9)
https://www.greens.org.nz/accident_compensation_policy
Also bare in mind the original vision vision for acc as designed by Sir Arthur Owen Woodhouse was a full on medicare agency in his report back in late 1967. The Sir Arthur Owen Woodhouse report at the link below .
The relevant section is paragraph 17 on page 26 of the report.
https://fyi.org.nz/request/9632/response/32430/attach/html/2/Woodhouse%20Report%20Compensation%20for%20Personal%20Injury%20in%20NZ.pdf.
For all the reasons this needs to happen re the ACC change read the post below and feel free to share it widely.
Updated – July 3rd 2020.
Updated version of an e-mail sent to Andrew Little and Golriz Ghahramam on the 16th of May 2020 re our Breach of article 25 of our Human and Social Justice rights guaranteed in the UN HUMAN RIGHTS CHARTER.
Dear Andrew And Golriz
THIS FIGHT IS NO LONGER A MEDICINES ISSUE .
IT IS A DENIAL OF HEALTH AND WELFARE FUNDING ISSUE DUE TO ECONOMIC STATUS.
IT IS A BLATANT BREACH OF ARTICLE 25 of THE UN HUMAN RIGHTS ACT.
Re funding of Medicines and MSD Welfare healthcare funding as a Human and Social Justice issue.
Please Note; This is a copy and paste from a regularly updated announcement in my facebook group
UNDER FUNDING OF MEDICINES BY PHARMAC, as I think of various angles and Instances that are pointed out to me.
The problem as seen by members of my group and Patient Voice Aotearoa members.
This is why I say only targeting medicines and welfare funding in a silo, is only HALF of the medicines and healthcare welfare problem.
It is a total human rights and Social Justice issue.
We also have inadequate welfare funding of long term illness, that won’t allow you access to buy medicines or medical care and your living expenses problem .
This is why I say we need a multi target approach, as a Human and Social Justice issue by a Single agency.
I would not be surprised one bit, if a large chunk of the unemployed who are in a relationship, who get refused a benefit due to being in that relationship of any sort, even if they have a long term illness.
This includes the supported living payment, Jobseekers etc, that then prohibits their access to the necessary healthcare and medicines money they need.
1000 plus people alone were denied access to a benefit in April 2020 according to RNZ and STUFF news reports.
How many of them have health issues ?
What is the denial figure for the last 6 months I wonder ?
Due to the restrictions in place which allow you to have or not have the Slp, Jobseekers, Temporary additional support and Accommodation allowance.
How many of them are unable to buy all their meds every week or even go to the doctor or Get an Xray or whatever, that needs to be paid for out of your own pocket, that would have paid for if they were under ACC care or had access to a benefit.
But couldn’t because your partner did not have enough money and now limited access to payday loans further denies you access to funds .
This discrimination due to relationship and income limit status has to be brought to an end as a Human and Social Justice issue right.
In my opinion it is a TOTAL breach of Article 25 of the United Nations Human Rights Act .
https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/
Article 25.
(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
(2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.
Denial of healthcare and welfare due to economic status is a breach of the act surely.
It says everyone is entitled to health and welfare.
So why are people being denied due to being in a relationship based on economic status?
We hear of chemists saying all the time, of people not being able to afford even funded meds, let alone unfunded meds.
How many other people are denied access to healthcare, that has to be paid for due to the cost.
Then we have the waiting lists to get into the hospitals, denial of funding of medicines and for decades we have had the denial of access to the Supported Living payment, due to 2nd opinion doctors and Case Managers personal political Beliefs and not medical reasons etc.
In my opinion we need to start the discussion to turn The Accident Compensation Commission into a full blown MEDICARE AGENCY, that covers ALL LONG TERM ILLNESSES no matter how they are occured.
As I stated above the medicines and welfare funding issue is no longer just a funding issue it has got to the point of being a Human and Social Justice Rights Issue.
How can the problem be fixed when every issue is being looked at in its individual silo’s and not as the global funding issue it is.
These HUMAN and SOCIAL JUSTICE questions need answers,so we can move forward towards serious answers to the issues involved.
In Fact does any of the Government departments ( MSD HEALTH and MBIE) even have the answers to the questions I have listed below?
1 What % of the population is in a relationship has a person with a long term illness.
2 What % of the population that has a person in a relationship is having trouble funding, funded medicines ( Not all towns have a countdown or Bargain Chemist with free prescriptions).
3 What % of the population that has a person in a relationship is having trouble funding unfunded meds.
4 What % of the population that is in a relationship, that has a person with a long term illness, has applied for a Pharmac statutory authority and been refused funding.
5 What % of the population in Q4 that has had a person that has applied for a Pharmac statutory application has been turned down.
5A How many applications in total has their doctor applied for and been refused.
6 How many people with long term illness have been refused the supported living payment benefit.
6A- What was the reason for Refusal
7 How many people with long term illness after being refused a supported living payment have been refused the Jobseekers benefit due to being above the relationship and or assets / income limit.
8 How many people with a long term illness that’s not recognised as a “long term illness” have been refused an Supported Living Payment
8A What was the illness they had that was refused the application for slp.
8B How many people with a long term illness, that’s not recognised as a “long term illness”, have been refused the Jobseekers benefit, due to the relationships rule and or assets limits rule.
9 How many peoples medicines costs, are above the disability allowances maximum Level.
If as stated in an NZIER report in a 2019 report re -unnecessary deaths.
If every unnecessary early death costs the country $5,000,000 dollars, the 6 reported (now possibly 7) Epilepsy deaths due to the Medicines change, (this doesn’t include any deaths caused by the depression drug switch in early 2019) against the advice of Medsafe. These costs would have cost the country $30,000,000 million dollars alone (The total savings Pharmac hoped to save over 5 years gone in less than three months).
10 What is the annual cost to the country in unnecessary healthcare costs, caused by people being denied access to Benefits, that would have allowed them the money to access the necessary healthcare, that money would have helped to provide. That caused serious downstream health issues that led to an early death and or suicided due to being depressed due to that denial.
11 How Many people took out Payday loans between 1st April 2019 and 31st March 2020 to pay for medicines and or medical expenses.
11A What was the average value of each of those payday loans.
11B Due to the new 2020 Responsible lending laws, are people going to be able to access the same number of loans they could previous to June 1st 2020, to pay for your medicines after the new law came into effect on June 1st 2020.
It appears you will not be able to, as you can only have 1 payday loan at a time, with a 15 day gap between each one and only two every 90 days.
This is going to severely affect people, who rely on accessing multiple loans at a time, to fund unfunded meds or operations, that have to be done in private practice, which can’t wait on a waiting list to have the issue fixed.
Let’s face it, all winz benefits for anyone with a long term illness are inadequate anyway, with the Winz overhaul reputed to be a 4 to 5 year project, long term illness funding for people with long term illnesses being denied, is no longer tenable as a cost to the country.
Along with the Pharmac Medicines funding issue this has created a crisis that is affecting more and more people every day as a Human and Social Justice issue.
Then the hoops you have to go through to get the Supported Living Benefit.
Even after that you have a 50/50 chance of being denied it, due to 2nd Opinion doctors and or Case managers personal biases .
Then the disability allowance is in a lot of cases nowhere near enough to pay for your medicines, especially if those medicines are unfunded, as they only pay a % and the Maximum amount is only $65.00.
The disability allowance was originally intended only to pay for travel to your doctors and doctors fees; it was never intended to pay for Medicines.
Even if you make a statutory application to Pharmac to get a medicine funded, there is absolutely no guarantee you will be funded in a timely manner, no matter how many applications your Doctor or specialist makes.
THE TOTAL ABANDONMENT OF THE RELATIONSHIPS RULE is needed as a Human and Justice issue right and to get long term illnesses and medicines properly funded for those with a long term illness.
At NO time do we see anyone discussing the long term consequences of, THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN INADEQUATE MEDICINES FUNDING and INADEQUATE WELFARE FUNDING. Of people in a relationship and or single people who have long term welfare funding rejected. After an application for the Supported Living Payment or rejection of the Jobseekers Benefit or a rejection of an Illness as even being an illness.
All these things have been going on for decades, so is it any wonder our health and welfare is a total mess and a Human and Social Justice issue that no one wants to look at the total picture to fix it.
This fix it piecemeal is no longer acceptable.
No wonder ACC was set up to only handle accidents and denied long term illness care, as suggested by Owen Whitehouse in his report back in the 1970’s.
Lets not lose sight of the fact a lot of people are denied ACC care due to 2nd opinion doctors passing the buck off on to WINZ, who then go on to use those same ACC doctors to give them a 2nd opinion, who then go on to deny you the supported living benefit, which then leads on, to all the issues I have listed above.
So it is easy to see why our health and welfare system to do with healthcare funding from top to bottom is now of third world status.
Reform ACC and lets have a world leading health and welfare system that actually has compassionate care as its focus.
Geoffrey Lye
Christchurch Central
Take note I never got a reply to these questions.
In Fact does any of the Government departments ( MSD HEALTH and MBIE) even have the answers to the questions I have listed below?
1 What % of the population is in a relationship has a person with a long term illness.
2 What % of the population that has a person in a relationship is having trouble funding, funded medicines ( Not all towns have a countdown or Bargain Chemist with free prescriptions).
3 What % of the population that has a person in a relationship is having trouble funding unfunded meds.
4 What % of the population that is in a relationship, that has a person with a long term illness, has applied for a Pharmac statutory authority and been refused funding.
5 What % of the population in Q4 that has had a person that has applied for a Pharmac statutory application has been turned down.
5A How many applications in total has their doctor applied for and been refused.
6 How many people with long term illness have been refused the supported living payment benefit.
6A- What was the reason for Refusal
7 How many people with long term illness after being refused a supported living payment have been refused the Jobseekers benefit due to being above the relationship and or assets / income limit.
8 How many people with a long term illness that’s not recognised as a “long term illness” have been refused an Supported Living Payment
8A What was the illness they had that was refused the application for slp.
8B How many people with a long term illness, that’s not recognised as a “long term illness”, have been refused the Jobseekers benefit, due to the relationships rule and or assets limits rule.
9 How many peoples medicines costs, are above the disability allowances maximum Level.
Dear Geoffrey Lye – They didn’t reply to you because your name makes them feel uncomfortable somehow.
Thank you for the tremendous amount of work and practical thought you put in to present this ACC information and to The Daily Blog for putting it up for us. It would be a good thing for everyone with the capacity to do so, to run off a copy of one of the informed comments, staple the pages, and staple it to either a bulletin board or put a number of push-pins
to hold them in place so they could be lifted and read. It may not last for long but would be a sign that someone is awake and feeling ‘injured’ by this. Can you claim ACC for mental stress, despair, continual anger, feelings of offence and disparagement?
(Surely this treatment is against wokeism, it displays anti-humanism which is worse than racism and sexism.)
Can you claim ACC for mental stress, despair, continual anger, feelings of offence and disparagement?
I am fairly sure the answer is no.
If you are planning to give away ACC to your mates and assure them that they will be getting a business with a 21 percent profit margin you would need to increase the revenue by 7 percent a year for 3 years beforehand.
Exactly what they are probably planning.
LOL, the government is going to use this an excuse to privatize and deregulate ACC. Its so blatant now
Go back a few years to when national tried to privatise ACC by allowing insurance companies to take over work place cover .The company I worked for at that time jumped on the band wagon and went down the private road while still collecting 1.3% of my pay to cover the cost .A year later the private companies all went broke so back to ACC it was.At a national AGM of a sport I was involved in a high powered lawyer stood up and pointed out why we as a sport needed ACC.He used examples of a recent trip to AUS where he discovered that all of the facilities like we had here were all fenced off and coaches had to take out public liability insurance because athletes could sue if they got hurt at training .He had an example of a coach who had to pay 100k because a kid broke his leg .All of the sports clubs also had to have massive cover for the same reasons which in turn made membership of those clubs more expensive .So once this lot of idiots sell off ACC put your head between your legs and kiss sport and sports clubs good bye .An increase of .5 % is chump change compared to the cost of getting private cover from gouging private providers who will no doubt hike the cost as soon as they can like they are doing right now with car insurance rising by 40 to 60%.
Please copy and paste my 3 posts on your facebook pages .
The Greens back reforming acc into a medicare agency as Owen woodhouse wanted.
The Idea of the Pharmaceutical came from Ian Powell and it is a good one 1/3rd of NZ GDP is medical research and medical trials which is held back by our medicines rationing of funding for new medicines not keeping up with latest medicines which the trial meds are trialed against not the outdated 20 plus year old ones .
All in all our health system is in dire straights.
Thanks for all the thoughtful commentary. ACC was a 1967 brilliant paradigm shift in thinking from the old workers compensation insurance model, but it was never implemented as Sir Owen wanted and now in the 21st century it needs to be totally rethought. The current approach has to distinguish between work and non work accidents to make the work account more like pure insurance– but that distinction is difficult to sustain in a modern world of remote working. I am writing something on the proposed change to the ballet levy which is outrageous for a social insurance scheme. Good on the Greens for rethinking ACC
Thank You Susan.
The Greens are the only party to even take on board the paradigm shift our primary care system needs.
The current te whata ora model is entirely focused on the end hospital care.
Here is Dr Bryan Betty of the GP CLINIC OWNERS talking to Bryan Bruce re primary health care
https://bryanbruce.substack.com/p/episode-10-dr-bryan-betty-onzm-a0c?
Lets not forget the post a week or two back showing the decrease in both private and public hospital beds since 1980 which has led to the current healthcare crisis .
On many levels it is looking as though we should move to a green government .The current pm went on a trip to the UK to see how the Torries were destroying the UK and came back full of hate for the 90% of kiwis who dont own 7 houses .Now chippy is on the same mission and will come back with who knows what .NZ needs a complete rethink on where we need to go to build a decent country for every Kiwi to flourish and have decent living standards and to eliminate poverty and the benefits that will have for the whole country .Our future lies in the hands of the under 30s as they have a less selfish and less racist attitude .
I agree 100%.
The whole reason I joined the Greens is they embraced my idea of ACC reform.
The whole Idea started back in 2016/17 after the Maria Teirei crap shoot.
I put to the greens ( James Shaw) the idea of folding Pharmac into acc in 2017 and after that idea Ian Powell started blogging and in 2018 Patient Voice Aotearoa was formed.
But PVA were only concentrating on meds funding while I was more interested in a whole primary care reform of Medicines, Medical and Social Welfare.
If we want reform of our Welfare , Medicines and Primary medical care we have no choice but to VOTE GREEN IN 2026.
The list of ideas i posted above have been develop over the last 10 years.
Why because a T1 Diabetic i support has experience most if not all the things I have listed in the things I have said need changing.
I started supporting him in 2011.
So NZ you have a choice in 2026 more of the same crap or a start of a genuine reform of our healthcare by supporting the greens.
I joined the greens in 2020 because of 3 things;
1 their ACC policy
2 Their GMI policy
3 Their Health policy
All the identity stuff was small cheese in the actual scheme of things.
New Zealanders on the Right Center and Left need to wake up .
We have been sold a giant sized pup and and our health crisis now is the end result.
I agree 100%.
The whole reason I joined the Greens is they embraced my idea of ACC reform.
The whole Idea started back in 2016/17 after the Maria Teirei crap shoot.
I put to the greens ( James Shaw) the idea of folding Pharmac into acc in 2017 and after that idea Ian Powell started blogging and in 2018 Patient Voice Aotearoa was formed.
But PVA were only concentrating on meds funding while I was more interested in a whole primary care reform of Medicines, Medical and Social Welfare.
If we want reform of our Welfare , Medicines and Primary medical care we have no choice but to VOTE GREEN IN 2026.
The list of ideas i posted above have been develop over the last 10 years.
Why because a T1 Diabetic i support has experience most if not all the things I have listed in the things I have said need changing.
I started supporting him in 2011.
So NZ you have a choice in 2026 more of the same crap or a start of a genuine reform of our healthcare by supporting the greens.
I joined the greens in 2020 because of 3 things;
1 their ACC policy
2 Their GMI policy
3 Their Health policy
All the identity stuff was small cheese in the actual scheme of things.
New Zealanders on the Right Center and Left need to wake up .
We have been sold a giant sized pup and and our health crisis now is the end result.
Greens Health policy.
https://www.greens.org.nz/health_policy#:~:text=Provide%20universal%2C%20free%20and%20accessible,care%2C%20and%20mental%20health%20services.
Greens ACC policy
https://www.greens.org.nz/accident_compensation_policy#:~:text=The%20Green%20Party%20will%20ensure,real%20compensation%2C%20and%20administrative%20efficiency.