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Health

National Won’t Slaughter Mad Cow

Libertarianz leader and Masterton GP Richard McGrath is disappointed, but not surprised, with the National Party’s multi-billion dollar support for command-and-control state-run health care in Thursday’s Budget.

“That drooling beast, the public health system, has just been given another shot of adrenaline to keep its failing heart ticking over,” he said. “Bill English, Tony Ryall and John Key insist on prolonging its wretched existence, when euthanasia would be a more appropriate course of action.”

 “The measures outlined in yesterday’s budget merely entrench the intrusion of politicians into people’s lives. They perpetuate the crumbling network of state-run hospitals - and manipulate student numbers at government medical schools for short term gain - rather than encouraging private sector competition in both these areas.”

“The million dollars of other people’s money Tony Ryall will spend to try and rejuvenate GP obstetrics has come far too late to reverse the near-total flight of doctors from this crucial area of orthodox medicine. Pregnant women are still considered incapable of organizing their own obstetric care with their own money, otherwise Mr English would have abolished price controls and allowed women the freedom to contract their care to their preferred providers on mutually acceptable terms.”

“Boosting the throughput of elective surgery in the public system seems, at first glance, an idea worth considering. But it fails to address the issue of where this money may otherwise have gone, had it been left in the hands of its rightful owners.”

“We can safely conclude from this Budget that the health industry will remain almost fully nationalized, its workers public servants in all but name, under the Key administration. New Zealanders will continue to be denied the opportunity to choose the level of individualized health care they can afford.”

“This government, like the one before it, undermines individual responsibility, self-reliance and self-respect when it takes people’s money and tells them what health services it has purchased on their behalf.”

“The Libertarianz Party, on the other hand, trusts New Zealanders, their families and their caregivers to make appropriate choices about their own health needs. We believe health ’policy’ should be a matter for individuals to decide for themselves.”   

“My party deplores National’s gutless capitulation from its core values to embrace socialized medicine. Not only does this model fail to deliver the goods; more importantly, its funding mechanism relies on extortion and outright theft from those who produce wealth -- including New Zealanders on low incomes who a Libertarianz government, if elected, would stop taxing entirely.”

ENDS

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