Private health insurers looking after own interests

Private health insurers looking after own interests

“All this talk of a worrying decline in private health insurance is just an attempt by the health insurance industry to protect its own commercial interests,” says Ian Powell, Executive Director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (ASMS).

“Don’t be fooled into thinking a problem actually exists just because the number of people with private health insurance is reportedly falling off. The insurance industry would have us believe New Zealand is dangerously over-dependent on public funding of health but that’s just the industry trying to talk up perceptions of a crisis so it can cash in.”

He was responding to reports of the health insurance industry’s briefing to new Health Minister Jonathan Coleman, which warned that older people were increasingly unprepared to take responsibility for their own health care despite a growing need to do so. The Health Funds Association says other nations are looking to “rebalance” their health spend in favour of private spending but New Zealand appears to be moving in the opposite direction.

“The only thing that needs rebalancing is the insurance industry’s idea of what’s in the best interests of New Zealanders,” says Mr Powell.

“People are not overly-dependent on public health care, as the insurance industry would have us believe. New Zealanders quite properly rely on a high quality public health system funded through their taxes. They expect it to provide equitable access to a comprehensive range of healthcare for all. The private health insurance industry is entitled to promote its own product but it is not on to expect this to be done by raiding funding badly needed by the public health service.”

He says the Government does have a number of critical issues to address within health - especially with regard to long-standing specialist shortages in public hospitals and high levels of unmet need – but tipping health care in favour of private insurance providers is not one of them.

Mr Powell referred to a recent ASMS report titled Reality Check: The myth of unsustainable health funding and what the Treasury figures actually show, which debunked the prevailing thinking that New Zealand’s public health spend was unsustainable: http://www.asms.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Reality-Check-health-funding-paper-Final-21-August_162107.6.pdf

He also noted comments by Professor Martin McKee of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine during his visit to New Zealand in August that the view the public sector could not perform as well as the private sector was incorrect. In fact, said Professor McKee, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had found that approximately 4.3 dollars was generated for every dollar of public health spend. His comments can be read at http://www.asms.org.nz/news/asms-news/2014/08/26/argument-investment-public-health/.

“Health Minister Jonathan Coleman has already dismissed recommendations from the Treasury and the Ministry of Health to change the way health is funded here, which he is to be commended for, and we are sure he will also give the private insurance industry’s profit-driven ministerial briefing the five minutes of reading time it deserves.”

ENDS

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