Dr Angus Chambers: Chair of the General Practice Owners Association on the privatisation of healthcare in New Zealand

Despite not being the leader of the country, David Seymour has delivered his State of the Nation address. 

The ACT Party leader said New Zealander's need to stop being scared of privatisation, look at selling government assets, and change the way the country funds education and health. 

Is this the solution to the downfalls of New Zealand's healthcare system? 

Chair of the General Practice Owners Association Dr Angus Chambers talks to Andrew Dickens about what such a change would mean for Kiwis. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Right. Act Party leader David Seymour has done his own
State of the Nation's speech. Of course, he's not the
leader of the nation. It's his feeling of the state
of the nation. And he says we need to stop
being so scared of privatization, and he says we need
to seriously look at selling government assets that's also known
as asset recycling, and changing the way we fund education

(00:22):
and health. And here is some of what David had
to say.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
We're now spending six thousand dollars for citizen on healthcare.
Almost how many people would give up their right to
the public health care system if they got a six
thousand dollars contribution to private insurance. Perhaps we should allow
people to opt out of the public health care system

(00:46):
and take their portion of the funding with them for
that sort of scheme.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
That's David Seymour. So, Doctor Angus Chambers is chair of
the General Practices so A General Practice Owners Association and
Angus Joysy Now, hello, good afternoon, good idea, a bad idea.

Speaker 3 (01:03):
Look, there's a lot of work that needs to go
into that to make to see whether it is an
evidence based kind of policy. We know that it happens
around the world transitioning from what we've got to that
has got some you know, pitfalls. Maybe there are some pros,
but there are some cons as well. So yeah, we'd
have to see what it looked like. I wouldn't be

(01:24):
completely against it. I think there are some efficiencies in
private run organizations, general practice being one of them.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
Yes, well, private run organizations in New Zealand do seem
to be operating at a higher level. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:38):
Look, I mean there is a whole lot of stuff
with insurance based systems. There's a whole claim based bureaucracy
that needs to come into play. There's the profit element
that you know isn't there in the public system. But
perhaps efficiency trumps the efficiency gains trumps the losses that
you get from profit. So yeah, we're examining. But it's

(02:01):
not a completely obvious solution.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
Here, and it means that health care is not democratically accountable.

Speaker 3 (02:14):
The way we've got at the moment.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
You mean, no, under a private system, while we provide
the money, we don't have any control over the operation
the actual outcomes other than putting in regulations.

Speaker 3 (02:27):
Indeed, and you know, certainly some insurance based systems there
are people who miss out because they're not ensurable, and
they're not they haven't got the money to do it.
So we have to be very very careful in anything
like this, that's for sure.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
You've mentioned before in your first answer that it's used
around the world.

Speaker 3 (02:43):
It is.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
It's used in Germany, it's used in France, it's used
in Switzerland, and it's also used, of course in the
United States of America. So does it work well well?

Speaker 3 (02:54):
I think if you're looking at the United States of America,
it works extremely well for some people who have got
all the resources they need, but it works very very
poorly for a large part of the population. I think
the European models are probably better at looking at but equally,
if you look at high performing health systems around the world,
some of the Scandinavian countries would be very near the top,

(03:15):
if not the top. And they've got a publicly funded
health system, so it's not just a linear, if good
insurance system you do better.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
So you're saying the most successful systems in the world
are public and they're in Scandinavia, But also remember that
they have very high levels of government spending and income.

Speaker 3 (03:34):
But very high taxes too, very.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
High taxes where there we go meanwhim, I mean, maybe
it doesn't work in America. I can see many people
saying that, so we could adopt something more like Germany,
France or Switzerland than it could work here.

Speaker 3 (03:47):
Yeah, look, I think it bears examining. I wouldn't claim
to be an expert on that, but you know, if
it's successful and delivers a great care across the population,
and we don't have significant people missing out on it,
but it would take you know, we haven't got a
setup for this at the moment. We certainly have got
private healthcare delivery, but it doesn't do the whole suite
of healthcare. In fact, a private system relies on our

(04:10):
public system to the most complex of surgeries and interventions,
and if something goes wrong in the private system, it's
not uncommon to have to transfer across to the public system.
So we don't want to weaken that and lose some
of the great healthcare that we do provide in New Zealand.

Speaker 1 (04:25):
Doctor Angus Chambers, a chair of the General Practices Owners Association.
I thank you so much for your time today. Enjoy
your weekend.

Speaker 3 (04:32):
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