BLOG: ACC and Elective Surgery
I wrote this thinkpiece for the National Business Review, which published it on 23 October 2009:
The emerging debate about the ACC scheme presents an opportunity to take a bolder and more lateral approach to the future provision of healthcare services in New Zealand.
Leaving to one side for the moment the philosophical arguments about whether ACC is effectively a form of social insurance or a comprehensive taxpayer funded scheme, the fact remains that it has been very successful at using its collective purchasing power to provide a wide range of services to the victims of accidents. This is an aspect of ACC that deserves far greater attention in the current review, as it has the potential to bring about far more significant patient gains overall. ... Read the full text of this blog post.