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
This week's winner, Nina Arron, of Lawrence, receives a copy of John Z. Robinson's Red Studio, Longacre Press, $39.99.
