The Government has made no secret of its desire to open up
ACC to private competition.
What would this mean for New Zealanders? What do we want and
expect from our accident care system? Who will pay if the
Government does not? The cost of care is not going to go
down.
Doctors and hospitals still need to be paid.
I have recently returned to New Zealand after 10 years back
in the United States, where I had excellent medical care but
it was far from cheap. I paid around $800 per month pretax
towards my health benefits and I believe my employer paid
double that on my behalf. And the costs did not end there.
Our car insurance in New Zealand is $200 per year; in the US
$1600.
The bulk of this difference was to cover being sued if
someone was hurt in an accident we caused. Vehicle
registration was cheaper because there was no ACC component
but not that much cheaper.
On the question of vehicle registration, what would happen in
New Zealand if private accident cover becomes an option? If
someone has private cover, would their vehicle registration
have the ACC portion removed? Or would it be left in to cover
harm done to someone else in the event of an accident?
And would insurance companies be willing to offer accident
cover without the right to sue to recover costs if someone
was deemed to be at fault?
Do we want to become a litigious nation? In the US, if you
hire someone to do work on your property - paint the house,
lay a cable, prune a tree - it is important that you get a
certificate of insurance from the person doing the work.
You need to know your property is named on their insurance
because if not you can find yourself liable for a worker's
care if s/he is injured while working on your property.
What is our Government's aim here? To create better accident
cover for New Zealanders or to shift costs from the
Government on to us as individuals? ACC may be a little
dented but to truly break a health system, try privatisation.
Nina Arron
Lawrence
- In recognition of the
importance of readers' contribution to the letters page, the
newspaper each week selects a Letter of the Week, with a book
prize courtesy of Dunedin publisher Longacre Press.
This week's winner, Nina Arron, of Lawrence, receives a
copy of John Z. Robinson's Red Studio, Longacre Press,
$39.99.
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