PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Health

Whose Health Is It Anyway?

Libertarianz leader and Masterton GP Richard McGrath challenged Tony Ryall over the National-led government’s proposed Integrated Family Health Centres.

“This is just more of the same medicine dished out during the nine long years of the Clark administration – based an the over-riding assumption that New Zealanders have a right to receive unlimited health care paid for by other people.”

“And because New Zealanders have this entitlement to expensive medical and other treatment, the government’s job is to organize its administration, and to ration it.”

“This justifies the minister and his bureaucrats meddling further into the affairs of private health practitioners, effectively forcing them into bigger regional groupings, in the style of the Auckland super-city, where they can be more easily manipulated and coerced Effectively, one neck for the chain – or the noose.”

“The days of the independent general practitioner are long gone. It is impossible for a doctor in primary care to function outside of the state-imposed PHO system unless his or her patients forgo taxpayer subsidies on services including pharmaceuticals, radiology and lab services.”

“The National Party’s values, according to their website, are supposed to include limited government, competitive enterprise and individual freedom and choice. This is a sham. National have no intention of allowing a free market in health care, which would be the practical application of these values.”

“In fact, National’s very name suggests that their underlying agenda is nationalization, in the health industry and elsewhere. They have decided to take charge of your health, whether you like it or not. They take your money, and ration out the crumbs. Middle-class New Zealanders, from whom most of the money spent on health is extracted, often find themselves unable to access health and social services – particularly if they don’t have a Community Services Card.”

Dr McGrath said the Libertarianz Party propose a radical change in the government’s approach to health care.

“We believe it is a private matter, for individuals or voluntary groupings, to organize health care using their own funds. Thus we suggest lowering taxes, and letting people spend their own money on health care, directly or via such avenues as insurance cover or non profit organisations.”

“We believe government should stand aside and let people make their own choices, not be herded by politicians and bureaucrats into one-size-fits-all nationalized health care.”

ENDS

© Scoop Media