They are wrecking our health system

[Rich80105]

https://newsroom.co.nz/2025/04/03/i-was-overjoyed-to-move-from-the-us-health-system-to-nzs-but-then-i-could-see-the-cracks/

[It's A Me]

Post by Rich80105
https://newsroom.co.nz/2025/04/03/i-was-overjoyed-to-move-from-the-us-health-system-to-nzs-but-then-i-could-see-the-cracks/

The New Zealand public health system and the UK's NHS system would be
fine, but they are drastically underfunded and understaffed. It's also
utterly moronic that the national emergency ambulance service is not
fully government funded and has to rely on charitable donations,
subscriptions, and sending out invoices for emergency services!

[Rich80105]

Post by It's A Me

Post by Rich80105
https://newsroom.co.nz/2025/04/03/i-was-overjoyed-to-move-from-the-us-health-system-to-nzs-but-then-i-could-see-the-cracks/

The New Zealand public health system and the UK's NHS system would be
fine, but they are drastically underfunded and understaffed. It's also
utterly moronic that the national emergency ambulance service is not
fully government funded and has to rely on charitable donations,
subscriptions, and sending out invoices for emergency services!

You are absolutely correct, It's A Me. As I understand it, the budget
for health under the current government has been a trivial amount
greater than the previous year - effectively no increase, with
inflationary costs met by reducing staffing. Building costs have blown
out, and the system is starting to break down. Meanwhile, private
hospital owners have continued to build, to invest in new technology,
and are growing. Quite often they will use public testing services,
and they tend to specialise in short term operations with quick
recovery times - no longer term medical wards for slow recovery or
decline situations. The policy issue is that they borrow at higher
rates than the government, maintain more lavish / comfortable / quiet
premises and are able to charge either insurance companies or the
public sector with costs that include costs for maintenance and
capital. So the public sector pays more to private providers than
their own costs, but they need to do that as public capacity is
declining.

Health needs are fairly predicable so using purchasing services from
the private sector should not really be necessary, but for strange
reasons National-led governments think that low levels of government
borrowing are a necessity - our government has much lower debt than
most countries; as a National it is private debt that is of greater
concern. Add to that the problems of recruiting when the current
government is not prepared to pay market rates, and we have a disaster
building, with increasing stories about smaller hospitals struggling
meeting needs from both building problems and staff shortages.

I suspect that the ACT party want government to get out of public
hospitals and to move to a system more like the USA, where increases
in mortality have been attributed to both poor Covid policies and to a
hospital system that is failing an increasing proportion of the
population - their average per person cost of health services is
however well above our current spending . . .

[Willy Nilly]

Post by It's A Me
The New Zealand public health system and the UK's NHS system would be
fine, but they are drastically underfunded and understaffed.

Well, everybody wants more money for you-name-it. The way to get the
health sector back in balance with the public, is to end "health"
medicine, that is, people should see doctors only if they're sick.
People have been brainwashed to entrust their health to doctors, when
people should primarily be looking after their own health.

[Rich80105]

Post by Willy Nilly

Post by It's A Me
The New Zealand public health system and the UK's NHS system would be
fine, but they are drastically underfunded and understaffed.

Well, everybody wants more money for you-name-it. The way to get the
health sector back in balance with the public, is to end "health"
medicine, that is, people should see doctors only if they're sick.
People have been brainwashed to entrust their health to doctors, when
people should primarily be looking after their own health.

You are absolutely Right, Willy Nilly - and it is happening just as
you describe it, but it does also depend on what you man by "sick" . .
The removal of subsidies for prescription charges has meant that some
are not able to afford to pick up prescriptions - and in many cases
those who are ill do eventually recover without them. Covid was
regarded by some anti-vax adherents as a minor short term infection,
but we are now finding that second and third infections are, contrary
to the expert advice of anti-vaxxers, leading to longer term
disability - that may not be what they expected but Freedumb of choice
is important to many. Being sick however covers more than viral
infections - sports injuries and age can for example lead to bone
deterioration, with GPs providing an initial diagnosis and
recommending specialist referral - this does reduce the number of
people going to Hospital Emergency Departments, and makes it more
likely that Specialists do not waste time having to refer people to a
different specialist.

But you are Right in another way, it is well known that scarce
resources do get used more efficiently. It is getting more difficult
to get on the patient list for a General Practitioner - around a third
of GPs have a closed list and will refer others to either another
practice or to a hospital Emergency Department. That is a blunt
instrument, but does probably lead in your preferred direction.

Our government is helping in another way - by not paying competitive
salaries for nurses and doctors they are encouraging many to seek
employment overseas - mostly Australia, but also other countries. That
is helping encourage those that can to purchase health insurance - as
Nicola Willis pointed out in parliament recently, it is a prime
motivation of government to deliver profits to business owners; the
health insurance companies are currently making sufficient profits to
expand their hospitals - we may have a USA -style health care
structure sooner than many New Zealanders realise!

A minor concern with moving in that direction does concern some people
- overall life expectancy in the USA is reducing; but probably not for
those that can afford health insurance, so not a big worry, "Right",
Willy Nilly?

[Tony]

Post by Rich80105
https://newsroom.co.nz/2025/04/03/i-was-overjoyed-to-move-from-the-us-health-system-to-nzs-but-then-i-could-see-the-cracks/

Too late, Ardern already destroyed it. This government is fighting to get it
back to where it belongs.