I had private obstetric care for having my children (long story but basically it was to make sure my mother didn't have a nervous breakdown) and as soon as I had postnatal complications I was no longer under private care, I was in the public system! FFS
The thing is, the reason private obstetric care here is somewhat reasonably priced is because even minor complications get diverted into the public system. Without that backstop, you'd be looking at 5-10x increase in price
We've had private health insurance for years and surprisingly* year on year our premiums increase even though we've made hardly any claims. They also exclude pre-existing conditions, including the asthma I've had since childhood. We're all f@#$ed if NZ heads in this direction.
I didn't use to think the NZ public is stupid enough to let privatization go through without a fight. But given how crazy the world is latley I can no longer state that with confidence :/
When I lived in the states 20 yrs ago a family over the road had a child with Downs. their insurance was USD$600 a month. About NZ$1200...a month. Even with full insurance you still had a deductible to pay and a lot of costs aren't covered. 20 yrs ago... See how far $6000 gets you #NZPOL
We moved back to nz 4 years ago. Double those numbers. And you know what it was like, random bills arriving in the mail way after your hospital visit. I call it reverse lotto. You never know when you might go bankrupt.
Far from the most impt detail here, but will be interested to see if there's blowback on the Herald. Everyone got the speech under embargo so all those understands and such are cute fig leaves. But do wonder if Seymour is kite flying so the govt can gauge reaction.
I know not literally one man. But sometimes key players can get behind public discontent and go a long way to starting a revolution. Obviously it also takes a collective will. Sorry I didn't mean to imply some kind of great man theory lol.
Just for reference, average insurance cost in the US is about 16,000NZD (after currency conversion). And that leaves you liable for 5-10k out of pocket expenses before it even kicks in.
He's such a piece of shit. He's hoping some dumbasses will take that option to undermine the public system and then it will collapse and they'll sell it off
Get the public health system to pay for the expensive bits for free and let the private system pick up the cheap bits but charge expensive prices.... win, win. Then blame the public health system for the increased total health budget 🤦♂️
Yep and although the private hospitals do some good work, they REALLY rely on the Public System when it all goes to shit, or for those emergency situations.
Yep, I agree. I've got some private health insurance but that only works because of the significant backstop of the public sector. The cost to insure against everything without that backstop would easily burn through more than $6k per person.
Hundred percent Tony. And then we're at the mercy of the insurance industry's assessment of risk. Which without the considerable backstop of ACC, would be astronomical.
So I have just had a look at Cigna. Their "gold" coverage (not platinum) is $741 per month for me so that's USD$8,892 for me ... considerably more than NZ$6,000
Predictable response from Seymour. A summary...
'Now that we've underfunded health for decades and ignored the growing problems associated with ageing, poverty, obesity, etc, we now need to give up and become like all of the other countries that have privatised health with disastrous results' 🤦♂️
Comments
*not surprising!
"My payments just jumped up to that!"
"Wow, me too!"
Including medical professionals
https://youtu.be/5EDKRGkgLsI?si=NDx6tloRNLgBIVKJ
My son recently had 2 operations, they were $35,000 each for 4 days in hospital.
'Now that we've underfunded health for decades and ignored the growing problems associated with ageing, poverty, obesity, etc, we now need to give up and become like all of the other countries that have privatised health with disastrous results' 🤦♂️