A sensible oldie

The Herald reports:

There were tough questions, soft questions, and sometimes no questions at all as Labour leader David Cunliffe took to the Auckland suburbs of Glen Innes, Onehunga and Tamaki yesterday to sell the party’s policies.

Fresh off his announcement that all over-65s, pregnant women and children under 13 would get free GP visits and prescriptions, Mr Cunliffe visited Onehunga Mall.

But it was a shaky start, as a gentleman threw up his hands in a flutter in an attempt to avoid shaking Mr Cunliffe’s hand.

And Colleen Whitehouse, 77, said she didn’t want Labour’s healthcare policy. “I think it would cost the country too much money.”

It wold, and far more than they say. Labour constantly make the mistake of never allowing for the fact that if you don’t charge for something, then far more people will use it.  Student associations used to give away free “hardship” money and every year they would report how surprised they were that more and more students would turn up wanting free money.

This graph is from the Dim Post, where Danyl points out:

Labour’s policy is a generous subsidy to the least needy group in the country. It’s also a very large group of people with high health-care needs and giving them ‘free’ access to healthcare is going to cause a huge increase in demand for primary health services.

Labour is promoting higher taxes on families and businesses of up to $5 billion a year, so they can increase subsidies to the “least needy”. Our aging population already poses massive fiscal challenges to us in terms of affordable healthcare and superannuation. Labour’s policy will make future healthcare even more unaffordable.