Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Hodgson strained

Listening to question time Pete Hodgson, Minister of Health, sounds perpetually on the edge of hysteria. Yesterday he issued a statement slating Don Brash's earlier comments on the health system.

He quoted Brash as saying,"…if you offer something for free, the demand will be enormous, and that if you don't use price to limit that demand, you will soon be unable to meet the demand."

"No matter how much is spent on health, there will always be queues unless price or some arbitrary political decision is part of the rationing process."

What's to argue with there (bar the misnomer "free")? But Hodgson uses these self-evident principles to accuse National of wanting to charge people for elective surgery - as if they don't pay now!

Pete Hodgson is thrashing a dead horse. No wonder he is in such bad shape.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

When I was living in the UK from 2000 - 2003, we spent some time in a small town. The "free" doctors visits made actually getting to see a doctor a nightmare. It was very hard to get an appointment - if you were having time off work and needed a doctors certificate - well, often they couldn't see you for 2-3 days. People would make appointments, then never turn up (probably because they got better on their own!) but also wouldn't phone and cancel. There was also a sizeable retired population in the town - and the doctor told us that the sad fact was that many were hypochondriacs (sp?) - they would make a doctors appointment, simply because they were lonely and wanted someone to talk to.

"Free" healthcare may be a utopian ideal, but a much more pragmatic option is a nominal fee (even if its only $5) to keep the time-wasters out.