Caring for Elderly

UnitedFuture has two key policies to keep older New Zealanders warmer and healthier. Both are about making New Zealand the kind of country it should be and make economic sense.

• Subsidise the power bills of over-65s by $50 per month for the three coldest months of the year – June, July and August – so our seniors can afford to keep warm

• A free ‘Warrant of Fitness’ annual health check for those over-65 to identify health problems and illness early
  

It is the decent thing to do in terms of how we treat the elderly in our country.

Times are tough, but if you cut too many corners you end up with a false economy – and a very harsh country.

 Each winter, on average an extra 3000 people a month are hospitalised at a cost to taxpayers of about $880 a day, and a great many of those people are elderly – that adds up to about $243 million in extra hospital costs each winter.

 We have got to stop just looking at the initial cost of schemes, and measure them against what they save in the longer term through people being healthier and not being in our hospitals, and frankly, not dying because they get cold and sick.

 We save cents and lose dollars. It is a false economy and we see it too often.

 Put that $243 million for increased winter hospitalisation up against our Winter Warmer policy cost of about $57 million to help keep a lot of elderly well, warm and out of hospital.

 Death rates also jump 18 percent over winter – many of them elderly.

The subsidy could be implemented by a rebate on the power bill to be claimed back by the power company.

The $25 cost of the annual Warrant of Fitness health check for each senior citizen would be tiny when balanced against the $880 a day hospital tab picked up by the taxpayer when conditions not got on to early are far more serious and far more expensive to treat.

The combined cost of the two policies if fully taken up by all senior citizens would be about $71.5 million – $57 million for the power bill subsidy and $14.5 million for the WOF annual health check.

 Given the benefits that would come from these policies, they would be extraordinarily economical.