Gordon Campbell: On The Americanising Of NZ’s Public Health System

One of the odd aspects of the government's plan to Americanise the public health system – i.e by making healthcare access more reliant on user pay charges and private health insurance – is that it is happening in plain sight. Earlier this year, the official briefing papers to incoming Heath Minister Simeon Brown cited the rising costs of healthcare, the decline in life expectancy here as opposed to Australia, and a raft of other signs of systemic failure before concluding: The Government has options to change this dynamic and address the affordability of the health system...