"...why is the taxpayer-funded ACC even expected to pay compensation to someone who, we now know, has already received a million-dollar payout from a private insurance company for her bicycle accident, the same accident for which she's seeking an ongoing benefit from ACC?"
ACC is partially tax-payer funded but anyone in employment or self-employed pays premiums, often very hefty ones. If Bronwyn Pullar paid premiums, and if her injury fit the bill, shouldn't she be entitled to an ACC pay-out?And if Bronwyn Pullar paid taxes shouldn't she be entitled to an ACC pay-out? The fact she took out private insurance as well shouldn't have any bearing (unless, of course, she was setting out to get injured which seems highly unlikely). But this is the lie that is ACC and social security in this country. You make compulsory contributions with no guarantee of cover. Our system is a sort of hybrid between insurance, social assistance and wealth redistribution to the poorest.
Either government schemes should make pay-outs linked directly to contributions or let people make their own provision (while maintaining a separate pool for non-contributors).
As it stands we get the morally repugnant but legally defensible situation of Ms Pullar getting two pay-outs and still wanting more.
8 comments:
ACC cover would barely cover her mortgage payments if she had a $700K townhouse.
Private insurer is a top up to what ACC pays. ACC only pays about $80K per annum.
Insurance payments are not earnings and have no effect on ACC.
She has entitlement to both payments. She obviously paid twice - levies to ACC and premiums to the insurer.
I'm sure you'd expect to get exactly what you paid for - as Pullar clearly does.
I couldn't agree more.
The fact that her private insurance claims have been made public itself should be the subject of investigation. But when you've been pilloried in the media and by a blogger who carries on a generation obsessive family vendetta, you don't get much sympathy.
I agree with the first two comments and what you said, apart from Pullar getting two payments and "wanting more".
It sounds to me like she is simply wanting what ACC is meant to provide. This is a situation that is increasingly an issue in NZ, with hard working NZer's treated like beneficaries after they seek their legal entitlement after injury through ACC.
That's because ACC is just another benefit funded by the 10% of productive Kiwis to pay for the 90% bludgers.
ACC should be abolished, all ongoing payments stopped (just like any other benefit, including "super").
The only thing to keep is the "tort reform" to institute real personal responsibility. You are responsible for your person: if it gets sick or injured or has an "accident" it's your responsibility - not anyone else's, especially not anyone with the kind of money (or insurance cover) that makes them worth suing.
This government's countless scandals and ineffectual reform or "bashing" is just all to keep you all occupied while it buries us in more and more DEBT:
Numbers reveal National disgrace
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10795790
The point being of course LM that both ACC and the private insurer have gone through their medical experts and decided that her claim is crap so she's putting on the whole woe is me routine to get paid off.
Whether she had insurance is neither here or there, her campaign of bullying and using not a lawyer but Boag is indicative that both claims are indeed rubbish,
I actually see nothing wrong with the question as far as being from an ex ACT MP, or an ex liberrtarian. She is rightly questioning why the Government is expected to fund something that the private sector has already paid for. That not only makes the question fit within the classical liberal viewpoint, but also explicitly advocates for it.
I could agree with you only if there was an opt-out clause from ACC or social security.
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