Peters Winston: Affordable Healthcare Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumePeters Winston: Affordable Healthcare Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 11 November 2015. Volume:710;Page:7948. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): I move That the Affordable Healthcare Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Finance and Expenditure Committee to consider the bill. The primary goal of the Affordable Healthcare Bill is to rebalance New Zealand’s health care system. Our public health service is increasingly under pressure with growing debt longer waiting lists rationing of services and a more than anxious Governor of the Reserve Bank as evidenced at the select committee today. There is no doubt that health costs will escalate with a growing and ageing population.The Affordable Healthcare Bill is a three-part omnibus bill that supports that public health system by encouraging those New Zealanders who can afford it to contribute to their own health care costs. Primarily health insurance allows clients elective surgery which shortens public waiting lists and gives greater choice of health care for the majority of New Zealanders. You would expect that to be music to the National Party members’ ears. The Affordable Healthcare Bill—we might try and be positive and helpful—introduces three initiatives targeting costs to New Zealand’s health care system: specifically because of a larger numbers of older migrants the cost to our economy of sick days taken by workers and senior citizens giving up their health insurance at the very time they most need it. Business and Economic Research Ltd BERL has provided cost-benefit reports on all three aspects of this omnibus bill.First there is a requirement for all parent reunion category immigrants to take out 10 years’ compulsory health insurance as a condition of their residency. The minimum requirement is cover for elective surgery. New Zealand approves under this Government 4000 to 5000 parent category migrants every year. There are well over 4500 to 5000 parent category migrants every year and most are older migrants over the age of 60. They have to be in good health and pass financial requirements so there should be and would be if the system was operating as the Government claims it to be no barriers to taking out health insurance. This requirement brings New Zealand in line with other countries’ health insurance requirements for retirement visas. Business and Economic Research’s cost-benefit analysis says this measure would yield net benefits to New Zealand of around $10 million in the first year rising to around $100 million after 10 years. New Zealand would avoid bearing the elective health care costs of an additional almost 5000 parent category migrants every year year upon year. Most of these migrants are well over 60 years when their health costs rise rapidly.The fiscal costs of administering this measure are negligible despite National MPs claiming it would be difficult to manage. Health insurance companies will create the product to suit as they have abroad in other countries and it would only be an extension of what is already offered. Remember that insurance does not cover primary acute emergency or community care which all escalate for elderly. Primary acute emergency and elder care will still be paid for by the taxpayer. A ridiculous conclusion was made by the Attorney-General—you know the Lord Denning of New Zealand and the Pacific and the finest legal mind that has ever come out of any university in this country! A ridiculous conclusion was made by him. He commissioned a report stating that compulsory health insurance for migrants contravened the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. Migrants have a 2-year stand-down period for sickness and unemployment benefits as well as other welfare benefits. Migrants also have a stand-down period of 10 years for New Zealand superannuation. Is the Attorney-General saying in effect that there should be no stand-down periods in principle because they are contrary to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act? No he is not because he is talking humbug. Private health insurance shifts elective surgery from public waiting lists on to the private health system shortening elective surgery waiting lists for all New Zealanders.Second this bill proposes the removal of fringe benefit tax on employer health insurance provision. We could not put it better than a quote made by a certain man not so long ago. He said this: “At the moment any employer who offers health insurance gets hit by fringe benefit tax. I think that’s crazy. The more we can encourage employers to provide wholesale medical insurance for their staff the better. … Elimination of the [fringe benefit tax] on health insurance in the workplace is a good start.” Does that have a ring about it? You know what they say: “Plenty of pre-sales talk but no after-sales service.” Who was that man? Why nobody other than the Prime Minister of this country John Key. To the National Party over there your leader claims to be supporting this or he did when he was out there trying to win the vote. But then like everything else as soon as the election is over he has forgotten it. That is why so many businessmen are getting sick and tired because the guy is all talk. Go to a chamber of commerce go to the business community around this country and they say: “When is he going to do something?”. Well the answer is probably never but on this he should do something and do you know what it is? Just keep his word.The Prime Minister made these statements as National’s finance spokesperson. More recently in August this year—surely he can remember things for 3 months—he reiterated his support for wiping fringe benefit tax on companies that pay health insurance for employees. Business and Economic Research’s report on removing fringe benefit tax on workplace health insurance assesses the immediate savings of $150 million to Government coffers. This should be music to the ears of the National Party members. The Business and Economic Research cost-benefit report states that removing fringe benefit tax on health insurance can be justified on both fiscal and non-fiscal grounds. No wonder New Zealand First is getting a name for such marvellous policies because we go out there and ask the economists and they like it. Not only would this measure deliver clear fiscal benefits by giving workers access to fast elective surgery but it reduces pain and suffering while awaiting medical procedures for those on long long long waiting lists.I reiterate that the cost savings are twofold. First removing fringe benefit tax on health insurance would give significant cost savings by shifting elective surgery from public to private hospitals. Hear that? “Private”—there should be a resounding echo from that side over there—so shortening waiting lists for everybody. Second removing fringe benefit tax from health insurance would also increase GDP and tax revenues by reducing the amount of time people have off work or working less productively because they are waiting for hospital care while still trying to work. Ill health affecting the country’s workforce results in a loss of about $10 billion off GDP each year. This equates to around $2.7 billion of tax revenues lost. Attending or waiting for medical procedures is the third most common reason for absenteeism a huge economic loss to the country. Weeks months even years of being on hospital waiting lists also accounts for presenteeism. They all wonder what that word means but all my colleagues know what it means. It is when workers come to work despite illness or stress and they work at jobs with less productivity. Encouraging employers to participate in workplace health care the same way as ACC gets workers back to work faster from illness will lead to higher productivity and cost savings for business.The final part of this omnibus bill is a SuperGold 25c rebate on health insurance premiums up to a maximum of $500 per annum. Many seniors will love this because they want to keep paying but it is getting harder for them to pay with all the other costs—rates—Ron Mark: Power.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: —power food and Government charges—all going up. Expenditure on elective surgeries is around $700 million per year and the estimate from Business and Economic Research says that this could double by 2031 so it is a serious goer.To close this Affordable Healthcare Bill aims to rebalance the health system of this country. The OECD average for private health spending is 28 percent with a target of 30 percent. Australia is 35 percent. New Zealand’s private health spending has decreased to 17 percent. We trust that Parliament will seriously consider this bill which will boost uptake and retention of private health insurance. This will alleviate the burden on public health by freeing up resources and reducing waiting lists. I say to my National Party colleagues that things are looking bad. We just got the latest polls. They look real bad. Not for us—not for us. There is an enduring unending picture that is emerging now month upon month but they might just save some of their members if they went for this bill. We look forward to support from the National Party in view of the Prime Minister’s previous statements on wiping out fringe benefit tax. Thank you.