Espiner on National
September 28th, 2007 at 5:58 pm by David FarrarI referred to National’s handling of the GP frees issue as “a bit sloppy”. Colin Espiner is somewhat tougher, calling it “the mother of all clangers” and most amusingly:
I haven’t seen the Prime Minister looking this happy since Don Brash started talking about another MP’s testicles during a press conference.
Heh.
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- Espiner predicts National victory
- Quote of the Campaign
- National on brink of victory
September 28th, 2007 at 6:58 pm
I wonder how anyone in any other industry (GPs are not state employees, even if they get government subsidies to help citizens afford them) would take to having their fees capped regardless of their overheads / situation?
Removing the cap is the only morally and logically correct thing to do. Otherwise it’s discrimination against GPs.
No wonder people are getting out of that trade, they aren’t allowed to get ahead, overburdened with compliance costs (those have gone up many times in the last 10 years).
Do we want GPs or not?
Vote:September 28th, 2007 at 7:22 pm
Crap.
I thought we gave MPs the snip when they got into parliament to prevent breeding.
You guys get the clippers, I’ll hold him down. Anyone know who it was?
Vote:September 28th, 2007 at 7:23 pm
Price Control? Muldoon would have been proud!
Actually, again we have supply side problem here. Why aren’t there enough GPs? Earnings are part of it, but there are much bigger factors.
- Restriction on supply through the medical schools.
- Student loans driving young doctors overseas.
- MASSIVE compliance costs for a general practice.
Solution? Although I’m generaly in favour of market signals, I think they’ll be too sluggish and inefficient in our small economy. So I would like to see:
- MASSIVE reduction in GP regulation.
- A bigger increase in Med School intake.
- Bonded scholarships for medical students.
- Importation of large numbers of pretty blond Russian female doctors.
Actually, the last point is serious. Russia has trained many women doctors for many years, and of course as women entered the profession is lost status and pay. Wouldn’t they be happier in New Zealand?
Vote:September 28th, 2007 at 7:48 pm
if you want a bigger med school intake, you’ll have to overhaul the school system. Kids are too dumb now to get into med school, and don’t have the necessary training or attitude (mainly attitude). They can’t even spell, so what hope of writing out a correct prescription?
And it’s a mugs game being a doc, takes years off your life.
Vote:September 28th, 2007 at 8:30 pm
Yeah, using humour to divert the scorn doesn’t cut it.
Vote:September 28th, 2007 at 9:04 pm
Well, with the new education curriculum, doctors won’t have to actually learn anything about health; as long as they can work google to look up diagnoses, they’ll be set!
Vote:September 28th, 2007 at 9:05 pm
David , national will still be mega points ahead, Who cares,our doctors are deserting us ,but theres always witch doctors,??? you know ex taxi driveres,
Vote:our new citerzens, J
September 28th, 2007 at 10:48 pm
ADC: Have you seen the movie “Idiocracy”?
Vote:September 29th, 2007 at 4:28 am
National should make it a policy that every single New Zealander will need Private Medical Insurance if they are over 16 years old. Without Medical Insurance they will not be able to receive life saving treatment. If they decide not to get Medical Insurance it their fault if they die.
Vote:September 29th, 2007 at 4:44 am
Outrageous Advocatus. I have never heard such bigoted crap in my life. I suppose you willl next shooting people because they are over 50 and might get Alzheimers? It’s fascists like you that are ruining this country FASCIST!
Vote:September 29th, 2007 at 8:29 am
I worked out that if you took the entire govt health spend each year and divided it by the number of people in NZ it works out at something like $3,000 per person. That is more than enough to pay for private health insurance, with some left over. why not just do that? seems simple to me
Vote:September 29th, 2007 at 8:30 am
So the cow is happy at something she says is bad. She only cares about politics and crafting policies that suit the polls. Putting GPS under price control will slowly strangle that profession and cause shortages especially in difficult areas like South Auckland and some rural areas. I hope they all go to Australia and the Labour Government will have to poach Doctors from countries such as South Africa and Zimbabwe and other african and middle eastern countries that really really need them.
Vote:September 29th, 2007 at 8:31 am
Meh… if that’s the ‘mother of all clangers’, then I’ve got to say Colin’s had a remarkably sheltered upbringing.
Vote:September 29th, 2007 at 9:04 am
Indeed, Craig.
Vote:September 29th, 2007 at 9:10 am
…And National begins its policy driven plunge in the polls, if the Herald is to believed.
Vote:September 29th, 2007 at 9:24 am
vto
“I worked out that if you took the entire govt health spend each year and divided it by the number of people in NZ it works out at something like $3,000 per person. That is more than enough to pay for private health insurance, with some left over. why not just do that? seems simple to me”
Exactly. Why not the state buy every citizen a basic health policy. It could then be topped up by individuals according to their preferences and lifestyle choices eg take away all drug laws etc and charge drug users more for their health insurance. If you take drugs or a re promiscuous or eat badly etc you are responsible for the outcomes.
That way lifestyle choices are not a matter for the health police, it only concerns the individual and the insurance company. Nor will I then have to pay the health care of people who make stupid choices.
Vote:September 29th, 2007 at 10:02 am
vto
Are you suggesting that $3000 is the actual cost.
Vote:So what would a private carer want to cover that average, $3000, $4000, $5000, $6000 to make a profit that is acceptable to there shareholders ?
I have know problems with private health providors, but to think that they want to provide a service to every Tom, Dick or Harriet is naive in the extreme.
Private health providers have there place, even suppling services on request from the public health service, but to suggest as some do that it show provide or run all health!
Good luck if National becomes the Government and they do allow PE to be totally involved in the running of health, watch the costs of the health portfolio spiral out of control.
September 29th, 2007 at 10:10 am
radvad
That’s actually not a stupid idea. In reality it’s already sort of working that way but we just don’t talk about it because it assaults the ideology of the left.
EG: Smokers pay sensational amounts of tax which is collected apparently to cover the health costs of ‘being a smoker’. Then because people smoke they are denied health care when they are sick. So there is a basic cover available to everybody, some people pay more because they make bad lifestyle choices.
Vote:September 29th, 2007 at 10:12 am
John Dalley
Are you really suggesting that this is not already happening under Labour?
Vote:September 29th, 2007 at 10:34 am
The Herald wants to create a story out of their poll, though Morgan showed a different story. The papers want a topsy turvey contest driven by this policy gaff or the next with screaming headlines all the way down to the election. That sells newsprint.
Vote:September 29th, 2007 at 10:38 am
vto: “I worked out that if you took the entire govt health spend each year and divided it by the number of people in NZ it works out at something like $3,000 per person.”
Not a new idea, but very Succinctly put, additional government support could be provided out side of such a system for the uninsurable if deemed neccessary.
Vote:Why don’t we do it? For the same reasons we don’t do private prisons, for the same reason we don’t do private Education (except for those who can afford to give their kids a really good education), for the same reason there are always new laws coming in and rarely old laws removed without replacement, the state feels it must have more control, for socialist politicians it’s an addiction, and implementation of that control through the apparatus of the state is for them the easiest fix for that addiction.
September 29th, 2007 at 10:47 am
Andrew W
One size fits all. This is the problem. Labour want us to all fit what is easiest for the Govt to administer. Forget silly issues such as “is it working?” – if it’s mediocre it’s good enough for the socialists. Actually anything more than mediocre needs to be denigrated….
Vote:September 29th, 2007 at 11:17 am
We need a system, as outlined above, that respects freedom of choice and encourages personal responsibility. This not only provides an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, a fence at the top and, most importantly, signposts that point to higher ground. This would lead to people making better decisions about lifestyle induced health care demands.
Vote:September 29th, 2007 at 12:01 pm
You think GP’s have got it bad. Pharmacists are told what the DHB will pay them with virtually no room to negotiate, and they are not allowed to top this up by surcharging the patient. Yes there are millionaire pharmacists out there who have made a living out of selling crap. Rural and small suburban pharmacies that rely mostly on dispensing income produce no millionaires.
Vote:September 29th, 2007 at 3:51 pm
I can’t work out why one of the most desirable areas of the country(Kapiti) should be so short of GPs that there are over 500 residents who are unable to access treatment because all the Practise books are full.
Vote:September 29th, 2007 at 4:11 pm
toms wrote:
Oh dear, Tom – whatever happened to the Herald being a filthy lying Tory rag whose pollsters where obviously tame National Party bitches.
And not to actually take the polls any more seriously than they deserve to be, I’d note the accompanying stories make heavy weather of the fact the PM hasn’t been missing a chance to get media facetime and has ten days or so of lightweight photo ops ahead. God, any incumbent PM who can’t wring some poll points out of that is incompetence personified. Not adjectives I’d ever apply to Clark.
Vote:September 29th, 2007 at 7:11 pm
Craig, to paraphase David Lange: lean a bit closer, I can smell the desperation on your breath.
I assume that even a Uncle Tom like yourself can understand “if the Herald is to be believed.”
PS – whats it like being the only gay right wing brown guy on the shore? Pretty desperate, if the chip on your shoulder is any guide.
Vote:September 29th, 2007 at 8:37 pm
“I assume that even a Uncle Tom like yourself can understand “if the Herald is to be believed.”
PS – whats it like being the only gay right wing brown guy on the shore? Pretty desperate, if the chip on your shoulder is any guide.”
What’s with all the hatred Toms?
Vote:September 29th, 2007 at 8:52 pm
Tim
“The papers want a topsy turvey contest driven by this…”
Isn’t that what the papers have been running with National’s rise, more on the gaffs of Labour rather than National policy?
BTW. Having been in Vancouver for 3 months, there hasn’t been a single poll conducted that has been reported on. We are obsessed with polls in this country. They are very very boring, and the only one that counts is the one every 3 years. Who really gives a shit if shifting voters are swaying one way or another. Cause face it, we all here know who we are voting for (more or less), I really don’t care is someone is flipping and flopping all over the place. Boring.
Vote:September 29th, 2007 at 10:55 pm
craig, toms said:
“PS – whats it like being the only gay right wing brown guy on the shore? Pretty desperate, if the chip on your shoulder is any guide.”
I am shocked! Is this true?!! are you desperate?
Vote:September 29th, 2007 at 11:03 pm
“What’s with all the hatred Toms?”
Just another example of a tolerant left liberal. The cowardly POS Tom s can’t work out why Craig doesn’t vote left. One reason Tom, is that he’s quite a bit smarter than you, and therefore not locked into your troglodytic political perspectives and your sad commie stereotypes.
Vote:September 30th, 2007 at 8:13 am
TomS:
Only things on my shoulders at the moments are my pyjama top and a most fabulous silk dressing gown. Thanks for playing – but God, boy, at least I don’t go completely off the rails when teased.
My scepticism about polls is well on the record, and I’m quite comfortable being a member and supporter of a party whose leader is a class traitor according to bitter old Dr. Sullen. Also think Chris Finlayson (and many others) would take exception if I got all Little Britain and went around telling people I’m the only gay in the village,
Vote:September 30th, 2007 at 11:02 am
Or to quote League of Gentlemen:
‘Don’t be frightened Timmy love, it’s just a man in a dress.”
Vote:September 30th, 2007 at 11:12 am
erratum ‘Timmy’ should read ‘Mickey’
Vote:September 30th, 2007 at 8:50 pm
cmon you guys make Gordon copeland look proffessional
Vote:September 30th, 2007 at 8:52 pm
# vto Says:
September 29th, 2007 at 8:29 am
I worked out that if you took the entire govt health spend each year and divided it by the number of people in NZ it works out at something like $3,000 per person. That is more than enough to pay for private health insurance, with some left over. why not just do that? seems simple to me
Private health system does not pay a huge amount stuff like emergency services thats only provided in the public system
Vote:October 1st, 2007 at 4:03 pm
yes I know mr swampy. When I suggested it was simple of course it isn’t entirely simple.
But I do believe that the private system can be utilised to a far greater extent in the health sector. Like it is with the manufacturer and supply of those two even more important parts of human existence – food and shelter. Imagine if the govt provided all food and shelter – my god what a mess it would be.
Vote: