Government dumps ACC choice for employers
Employers will not be able to choose an accident insurance provider in the foreseeable future, Minister for Accident Compensation Nick Smith told a Parliamentary select committee this morning.
“That is not a priority at the moment,” Dr Smith said in response to questions from Labour MP Carol Beaumont.
“I stress that…we did not expect to come into government and find the scale of the problems within ACC that we have found. That is why we have had to change our focus.”
Dr Smith said there had been no discussion at Cabinet, Cabinet committee, Department of Labour or ACC board level on the issue of opening up the scheme’s work account to competition.
The government is putting the final touches on a group to undertake a “stock take” of the scheme and it had been assumed this would include the question of allowing employers to choose their accident insurance provider.
“The Cabinet hasn’t considered that issue and it is not my intention as minister to include the issue of workplace competition as part of that stock take,” Dr Smith said.
Dr Smith conceded – in answer to a question form Green MP Sue Bradford – that given the current financial pressures facing insurance companies “it might not be the smartest time to go down that policy direction.”
The workplace account is the only part of the scheme which is currently solvent – in fact it is, as the ACC board chairman John Judge pointed out to the committee, overfunded at present.
The government is also looking at greater experience rating not only for employers – as the National; Business Review reported last week – but also for motorists.
Currently the motor vehicle levy is a flat fee included in vehicle registration, but Dr Smith cited research which indicates if every car in New Zealand had a five star safety rating “we would shave 40-50% off accident costs.”
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Comments and questions9
I thought we had a non labour govt.
reminds me of George Orwell's "Animal Farm"
Do you remember last time employers WERE given a choice (under the then National government)?
Neither employee nor employer liked it - as the costs became suddenly and vastly higher...
Has been dodged by all and sundry - and that is :
Given the low performance of ACC and/or commercial insurers, should the State not keep its nose out of private people's affairs as far as possible?
With regard to worker's comp - although some form of compensation after accident, e.g. hospital care, should of course be covered by ACC, as thats its primary function - attempting to minister all ills is a fools game, and the results have been financially disastrous to the treasury. This attitude on the part of socialist Labour led to their being ousted democratically, but reform should take place slowly (i.e. over 6- month long periods), so as to evaluate harm on systems effectively. FIRING INCOMPETENT civil servants helps this process on DRASTICALLY.
Cleaning up the system should have he following priorities, as I am sure the Minister would agree :
- Evaluate the stupid bits and throw them out (e.g. flimsy ACC claims procedures and excesses), which is in process now.
- drastically reduce the scope of the ACC, e.g. to hospital emergencies only
- Limit ACC claims to real medical emergencies, qualified by at least two medical doctors, and support claims by medical data e.g. X-rays, MRI, etc. This is made possible by ACC in-principle claims for analysis, which if the patient is then faking would make the sickie liable, and not the taxpayer.
-Get rid of subsidised car insurance for WINZ beneficiaries and other lazy-bones. Its actually cheaper to WINZ subsidize a job seeker who has a car as they hunt for emplyment, and then logically expect them to pay it back after managing to get their heads back above water, rather than levy every motorist for the non-worker's laziness and on-road danger.
-fundamentally reduce the ACC - I recommend decimation to 20% redundancy - today, if possible. 1 week's analysis of aCC operations would quickly identify the dead wood. Emotional considerations and wishy-washy limp-wristed lilyliverishness aka cowardice in the face of a hard luck story (the Labour government's weakness, if ever there was one!), has allowed all government depts to baloon. If a way could be found to fire 10-20% of the total in a day - do it ! they've been a hopeless lot, and even fire the whole lot and find better qualified insurance types with experience in this sort of thing, pay them properly, have a small ACC 1/5th the size of current, and suddenly the things a winner. And that also, incidentally, how it originally was constructed and operated for 90% of its operational life....
Young workers, healthy and responsible, would certainly prefer to pay a nominal licence fee and this insure themselves. Yes, insurance premiums would go up, unless Government actively legislates against such a raise - allowing over-bureacratised insurers to pack up, and sound businesses offering no strings + no corporate graft to success.
The results of such a path are profound :
-ACC levies for car licences in particular drop almost out of existence.
-ACC part of taxes becomes smaller
-ACC is streamlined, able to do more
-useless mooching bureacrats are out on their ears.
-save taxpayer dollars and used more judiciously
-lower hospital bills, and more direct action
-shut malingeres and ne'er do wells out of the ACC pig trough
-let those who truly need it make use of the resource
-dig the treasury out of debt.
Simple innit ? and this address that first central question, over time of course.
How very typical both of Smith - and of this new National Government. Can't be trusted, as usual.
I see both Donkey and Smith-boy are still barracking for global warming - reworded as climate change, of cause...or emissions control.
And the sheer stupidity of allowing workers compensation for stress. ,,
Can we please claim stress for the anger we rightly feel about the government allowing the Maori tribal executives to bleed the country dry with the many utterly spurious claims for compenstion...$20 million alone for iwi to meet and talk! An utter taxpayer rip-off...
National is as disastrous as Labour at selling the rest of us out in this area. It amounts to the betrayal and robbing of majority New Zealanders
What really changes when they rotate the government seats?
Time to start insisting on a genuine democracy?
NZ's political environment is weird (and offends me). Everything that comes out of Nick Smiths mouth convinces me he should be in the Greens, which is NZ's communist party. The fact he seems to exist quite comfortably in National, and Key actually promotes him, says everything I need to know about National and Key: the socialist B team.
ACC is an absolute rort. Outside the insideous Working for Families middle class welfare, ACC is one of the worst abuses of government largesse in NZ.
God I'm fed up with New Zealand.
National is a complete sell out. The principles they list on their Internet site are a sham: in practice, as evidenced by Smith here, and English's appalling first socialist budget, they are Labour. There has been no change of government.
The only real choice out of NZ's rampant Bolshevism, is Libertarianz.
For Kai, in the eight blissful months that ACC was privatised, all of my clients got a better deal, as did myself. You show me actual evidence to the reverse.
If I live in a free country, then I must have choice of insurer. Give it to me Smith, or bugger off.
the workplace account is the only part of the scheme which is currently solvent infact it is, as the ACC board chairman john judge pointed out to the committee, overfunded at present
chairman JOHN JUDGE i got to say, i really admire, if to be honest, very envious of such a title, such a magnificant meaning, how high and above any other, a name JUDGE with so many, meaningful meanings, for someone so powerfull, in name, stature,symbolic inheritances.
overfunded at present, should be de levereged, obviously overcharged, overpaid, whatever
mistakes happen all the time, right, yeah well what will it cost you to fix it.
too much eh, too much for anyone to sacrifice.
you be the JUDGE,JUDGE?
the workplace account is the only part of the scheme which is currently solvent infact it is, as the ACC board chairman john judge pointed out to the committee, overfunded at present
chairman JOHN JUDGE i got to say, i really admire, if to be honest, very envious of such a title, such a magnificant meaning, how high and above any other, a name JUDGE with so many, meaningful meanings, for someone so powerfull, in name, stature,symbolic inheritances.
overfunded at present, should be de levereged, obviously overcharged, overpaid, whatever
mistakes happen all the time, right, yeah well what will it cost you to fix it.
too much eh, too much for anyone to sacrifice.
you be the JUDGE,JUDGE?
ACC has a special unit for "Maori" now.
What the hell!
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