12. BARBARA STEWART (NZ First) Link to this
to the Minister of Health
What reports, if any, has he received on the effect on free health care for under-sixes if the cap on general practitioners’ fees were removed and charges were left to be set by “the market”?
Hon PETE HODGSON (Minister of Health) Link to this
The member asks a very poignant question, and it is clear that she knows there is a history on this issue. Ten years ago this year, the then National Minister of Health, Bill English, at the request of New Zealand First—they were in coalition Government together at that time—introduced and paid for free health care for all under-6-year-olds. But that Government back then did not write that deal into any contract, and it did not adjust general practitioner subsidies to account for inflation. So 10 years later—today—about 40 percent of general practitioners do charge under-6-year-olds. It astonishes me that National has not learnt from that lesson.
Can the Minister also confirm that any removal of the cap, and a move to market rates, will likely result in under-sixes and seniors, who currently receive no-cost or low-cost preventive primary health care, delaying medical treatment until they need urgent and more expensive acute care, usually at already overstretched emergency departments?
That is precisely the point and precisely the case. It is time that this Parliament learnt that primary health care matters for the health of all New Zealanders, and that we can have slower progress of chronic diseases, we can avoid hospitalisation, and we can avoid some emergency arising, if there is good primary health care. We will never avoid all of that, but we can determinedly reduce the costs to the citizen and to the health system of secondary care by having better, cheaper, more accessible primary care. That is what the Primary Health Care Strategy is about, and that is what the National Party would have put a stake through had the media not caught it out.
Does the Government plan to further increase the number of general practitioners who do not charge to see 0 to 6-year-olds; if so, how?
Yes, we do. The member will be aware that as part of our confidence and supply agreement with her party, we recently announced a further increase for general practitioners for the provision of free under-sixes health care. But this time there is a difference; this time, if the medical centre is to receive that funding, then it will contract to not charge. If it does not contract, it will not get the money. So what we will see now is free visits for under-sixes to those general practitioners who choose to contract, on an ongoing basis. What is more, each year we will increase the level of subsidy or adjustment going to general practitioners to account for inflation—something the National Party never got round to doing.