You really do have to wonder sometimes.
eN-Zed taxpayers are now being told by the Labour Party (not the government, thankfully) that it’s apparently a bad idea to use public money (taxpayer funds) to buy cancer drug treatments for actual eN-Zedders. You know, the ones paying the taxes. The ones with cancer.
The government’s new plan (starting 1 July) allows public funding to cover certain cancer drugs for patients who are being treated privately. That means some eN-Zedders won’t have to abandon their oncologists halfway through treatment just because their cancer plan overlaps the private/public system.
Seems reasonable, right? After all, we’re talking about real people, with real cancer, needing real medicine. But Labour apparently sees it differently.
Labour’s Dr Ayesha Verrall claims it’s a waste of taxpayers’ money because most eN-Zedders don’t have health insurance, so helping those who do is (in her words) ‘a subsidy for insurers’. She suggests it would be better to spend the money on hiring more oncologists for the public system – hmm, 6 years in government and she’s only just come up with that genius idea?
Nobody would argue that we don’t need more staff in healthcare (and less in the Departments of Culture, Tax and that big new Department of Paying out Debbie Ngarewa-Packer’s Travel Claims) but what Labour seems unwilling to grasp is that this isn’t an either-or situation. These private patients are also taxpayers, and their needs don’t disappear because of which building they’re sitting in when they get their chemotherapy. As Associate Health Minister David Seymour rightly pointed out: ‘When you’re getting treated for cancer, you just don’t want any more problems in your life…’
But Labour seems to have a more pressing concern: protecting their view of the system, not necessarily the people inside it. Because heaven forbid public funds should ever benefit someone who worked and paid taxes. No, Labour seems to reserve taxpayer money mainly for vanity projects, ideological projects, and monuments to… well, maybe you’ve heard of the long-rumoured Colossus of Jacindy straddling the entrance to Wellington Harbour. (We haven’t seen the design plans, but you know someone in their Party’s got them.)
Meanwhile, back in the real world, people are juggling life-and-death treatment decisions, trying to avoid having to switch oncologists mid-therapy because of bureaucratic technicalities.
Labour’s argument boils down to this:
- “Unless you’re going through the system exactly how we say you should, at exactly the pace we approve of, you don’t deserve support from the system you helped fund.”
Frankly, this debate shines a bright light on the worst kind of political mindset: more concerned with defending structures than serving people.
Sure, the number of patients directly affected by this transitional funding might be small to start with. But for those few, the difference is massive. As Pharmac’s own Paula Bennett described, one man eligible for four treatments privately would have been forced to switch to the public system for the remaining eight — adding unnecessary stress and risk at one of the worst possible moments of his life. That’s what this policy helps avoid.
It’s called compassion.
It’s called pragmatism.
It’s called common sense.
Labour seems short on all three lately.
eN-Zed 