John Pagani
This report [pdf] is nearly a year old, but I haven't seen it before.
It is an authoritative study of health care across seven countries and ranks New Zealand first for quality of care, as well as cheapest.
Source: Paul Krugman.
We are cheaper, and probably the most socialised of the countries in that survey, too. Private health care provision, including insurance models, are an inefficient disaster.
This would be as true of ACC as of our hospital system.
The cost issue is exciting. Health policy analysts, especially at Treasury, have been having conniptions over the rise in spending depicted in this graph:
But we have been increasing spending less than other countries. Loom at the gap that's opened up since 1980.
We have been increasing spending as a proportion of GDP at about the same rate - or even faster if you take a trend line from about 1986 or from 2000.
So he gap has opened up because we have become relatively poorer since the mid-80s (Hint: what dramatic change in our economy in the mid-80s could explain why we began to get poorer?)
This tells us that the main impediment to more health spending is GDP, not efficiency - the number of treatments, medicines and so on we're getting for our bucks.
Look again at the first chart: We are the most efficient healthcare provider in the survey. So there is probably not much more juice to be squeezed out of the lemon.
We rank lower than others in access and especially equity of care. The consequence of spending less is that we are denying health care to some people who would get it if they lived in comparable countries.
As our national income rises, we should be spending quite a bit more in health acre, and aiming that extra spend at improving equity and access.
We should definitely avoid introducing more private provision into the health system.
