Health Targeting

Unless you live is Disneyland, you will accept that it is impossible to fund all healthcare, so the issue for Governments is how to target the funding to get the best outcomes for New Zealanders.

Now Labour’s GP funding policy is to be blunt bizarre. They have set up a system where you get a $27 subsidy based on where you live. Each PHO area is assessed on the number of low income, Maori and Pacific people living there. So even if you are a millionaire, you get the $27 subsidy because you live in an area with a PHO subsidy.

But it gets even worse. On the West Coast, a very poor area, their PHO does not qualify for the subsidy. Because they do not have enough Maori and Pacific people living there. However Rotorua (average family income $48,034) qualifies while West Coast-Tasman (average family income $43,783) does not.

So to be blunt Labour’s plans discriminate on race and target on where you live, not individual circumstances.

Now what will National do? While hard to follow we glean the following from this NZ Herald article:

* Increase subsidy for low and middle income families from $15 to $30
* Increase threshold to qualify for subsidy from $$20,275 for single person to $30,000 and from $45,498 to $55,000 for a family with two kids
* Not implement a universal subsidy for people aged 25 to 64 who earn above that level
* Have the subsidy dependent on your income, not on how many poor, Maori or Pacific neighbours you have

Under Labour a millionaire living in the right area will get a $27 subsidy while a poor person living in the wrong area will only get a $15 subsidy. Absolutely buts, which is why the Medical Association has endorsed National’s policy even though they probably would gain more from universal subsidies as planned by Labour.