On Friday, in Associate Minister of Health David Seymour’s State of the Nation speech, he floated the idea of giving New Zealanders the option of opting out of the public health system.
General Practitioners Aotearoa (GPA) encourages this Government to continue to support the people of Aotearoa New Zealand so nobody is left without access to healthcare.
Our healthcare system is already strained and needs more, not less, financial support to deliver equitable healthcare for all.
“It should not be controversial to say that New Zealanders deserve to be healthy, nomatter their personal wealth,” says GPA chair Dr Buzz Burrell.
“We’ve all seen the healthcare nightmare situation in the USA, how a system run by private insurance leads to perverse outcomes. Kiwis don’t want that,” he says.
“David Seymour is very interested in efficiency, so I would encourage him to read up on the decades of international research and experience showing that investing in public healthcare is good for the people, it’s good for the country, and it’s good for the economy.”