by frog
The deadline for submissions on the Government’s Bill to gut ACC is only three days away.
This Bill is designed to prepare ACC for National’s and Act’s ultimate objective – the privatisation of accident compensation to foreign-owned insurance companies that have to make a profit for their foreign shareholders on the backs of New Zealanders’ injuries.
So get your submissions in before the end of play Thursday. Green Party ACC spokesperson Kevin Hague has provided a helpful submission guide.
And you might want to have a look at these two videos.
Here’s new Green MP David Clendon, himself a longtime biker, addressing last week’s thousands strong protest outside Parliament:
And here’s Green Party ACC spokesperson Kevin Hague:
So get those submissions rolling in.
Published in Economy, Work, & Welfare by frog on Mon, November 23rd, 2009
Tags: ACC, ACC levies, David Clendon, Kevin Hague, motorcycle rally
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
this is a done deal..
at whoar i reported before the last election..
on a private speech key gave to the heavyweights of the australian insurance industry..
..in sydney..
where/when he promised to privatise a.c.c. for them..
he is only keeping that promise..
(two questions come to mind:..
1)did those insurance companies then donate..(thru local subsidiaries/w.h.y..to the national election campaign fund..)
2)..how many aussie insurance company shares did john key ‘hold’ before he put his monies into a ‘blind trust’..?
and..
did key gear-up/buy more aussie insurance shares..
around this time/before he ‘blinded’ his fortune/took office..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Kevin
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Kevin, ACC was failing do you really think the status quo is an acceptable option? Labour stuffed it, they abused the system and now it is swinging to the opposite extreme, in other words typical NZ politics.
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Government’s description of a “crisis” is based solely in the fact that ACC was not getting to the position where it would be able to pre-fund all lifetime costs as quickly as planned. That is the transition from Pay as you go (levies in year x fund costs incurred in year x) to full-funding (levies in year x need to cover the estimated lifetime costs of accidents that occur in year x) wasn’t occurring as quickly as the Government would like.
As the levies in a full-funding model need to be much higher (at least initially), maybe it would be better to say ACC was succeeding, but not as spectacularly well as planned.
The question I am encouraging people to consider is why ACC should move to full-funding at all. The change was supported by both National and Labour, and seems principally designed to make ACC services as much like insurance as possible, to facilitate private competition. The Green Party instead supports Pay as You Go with a sufficient reserve to be able to smooth any abrupt levy changes.
Interestingly, that is also the position of the CTU, Finsec and the ACC Futures Coalition, the three submitters to have appeared before the Select Committee so far.
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kevin..
here is one of them..
(from july 08..reporting what key was telling/promising the aussie insurance companies ‘on the quiet’..)
http://whoar.co.nz/2008/why-keynationals-plans-to-privatise-acc-suck/
(key phrase:..
“..after a report by the Australian broking arm of merchant banking firm Merrill Lynch said that Australian insurers could reap $200 million from such a move.
The report, by the firm Mr Key used to work for, said National was yet to release its 2008 policy but had been informally telling the insurance industry ACC would be opened to private competition..”
(i haven’t found the actual speech yet..will that do for starters..?)
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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“..However, I think they have underestimated New Zealanders’ support for the Woodhouse principles on which ACC has been built, to which privatisation is anathema..”
i feel that publicising that cynical pre-election/pre-election-policy ‘done-deal’..
those promises to the fat-cat aussie insurance companies..
and asking about any changes in shares-ownership in aussie insurance companies by key..
could both be fruitful lines of attack..
(another key phrase in that merrill lynch report from mid-2008..
is that ‘despite lower premiums..coverage in new zealand is more comprehensive that under the australian system..)
these are all weapons to attack key with..
go well..!
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Acc has now become a systemic abuser.
I was informed recently that I had to undergo a Psychiatric assessment with John Collier.
When I questioned ACC about this they told me I could expect them to assess me every year if not more frequently if they felt like it.
My claim is an old claim, I thought the new standards werent being appled to old cases, however I was wrong.
From Acc’s desk.
Hi David,
It is no problem, I am here to assist you through the rehabilitation process.
The reason for the referral to Dr Collier is to provide ACC with a way forward as to how best manage your claim, to identify any other areas that may have been overlooked in previous assessments that have any links to your sensitive claim including those symptoms and conditions that are not associated but may impact on your Mental Injury and therefore your claim.
ACC are obliged by legislation and the mandate set by Government to review all claims on a regular basis. This is including those claims that have clients who are unable to return to independance, as all situations change with time and age.
These assessments are on-going and you can expect at least one a year if not more depending on the severity of your injury and the length of time your claim has been open.
Hope this answers your query.
The one thing that makes me emotionally worse is having to deal with psychiatrists or psychologists.
My abuse includes attempted drownings, beatingsm, stabbings, multiple rapes, sexual abuse for 5 years.
My mother was psychotic and tried to poison or drown us on a regular basis. welfare wouldnt take us away because my father was robert muldoons personal driver.
I have a substantial number of physical injuries from being abused for 18 years from 6 weeks old in my welfare records.
Having to deal with this process so repeatedly is just a way for ACC to force victims away because of the abusive nature of these examinations.
I have had 20 years of therapy, CBT, group therapy, medications, flooding, family therapy and they havent been able to affect a cure.
What on earth makes them think they know anything?.
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Accident Compensation was set up to compensate for accidents.
It should not be handling compensation for problems that are not accidents.
Clearly ACC is not an ideal system to deal with many situations that would be better handled by the mainstream health system.
One of the main funding problems is that ACC has mushroomed to cover a wide range of situations that have nothing to do with the reason it was set up – accidents.
As for private cover, there are many advantages –
- you could chose to pay more or less to suit the level of cover that you wanted.
- safe work places and safe workers could be rewarded with lower costs – in other words there would be an incentive to be safer (something that is clearly lacking in the current system).
- there would be a choice of suppliers, which should keep prices competitive (as with all the other insurance we pay for).
- they would likely cut out a lot more of the scams that currently exist, which would mean more money back in the pockets of honest workers and employers.
Of course there are some potential negative effects as well. But the discussuion on privatisation should be held over the pros and cons of public and private, instead of head in the sand arguments based solely on ideaology, of one system or the other, with not consideration at all of real benefits of each system.
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Kevin – are you not being disingenuous about the ACC “surplus”?
Was the extra money not the residual fund being built up so it can permanently cover the ongoing needs of those who had accidents before 1999 are are still being paid out?
Funding as you go for the same years accidents simply can’t work when you ALSO have to fund historic accidents. You end up with the same number of workers having to cover more and more claims, as lingering claims from the previous year, and the year before, and the year before, stack up. It’s just not sustainable.
Perhaps we need a public / private hybrid. ACC can limit it’s ballooning costs by only covering a certain period – perhaps six or twelve weeks, or some other medium term. Long enough to cover most moderate injuries.
For those who chose it, there would be additional private cover available for the period after ACC ends. Clearly the private cover would be much cheaper, as all short and medium term claims would be covered by ACC.
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David,
I will not pretend to know the details of your case nor the pain you may feel recollecting your experiences to psychs. I do not doubt that the pain is substantial, any of the traumatic experiences cited could certainly, independently, impair one for life. The failure to respond to CBT is telling but understandable.
ACC is, however, entirely justified in attempting to wean out those whom would milk the scheme. One could argue that it does have a duty to do so such that it may keep the fees low enough for others. Anger should not be directed at ACC but at the many whom would seek to abuse it and thus make the actions needed.
Long seated cases such as yours are far less in need of review than newer cases. A generalized ‘once a year’ policy is, however, a good idea as it decreases perception that one is being picked on more than others and reduces openings for favoratism. The bottom line is that, if you do not want to put up with this invasion, you do not have to provided that you do not expect to get ACC.
As an aside, I do not see why you are with ACC rather than on the IB given the nature of acquisition.
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Kevin,
Full funding means that the groups whom are having the injuries are the groups paying for them. Pay as you go means that the children pay for the injuries of their parents. In the long term there is no reason there should be a difference in cost,that there is now is only due to a switch between paradigms. ACC is operating wonderfully but it has been using a train of thought alien to true green thinking.
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Photonz,
In the long term that is not such a problem as those moving to retirement will start to balance those moving on to the benefit as a saturation point is reached. The problem with the pay-as-you go approach lies in the decades-long response time to changing population sizes and distributions which results in children paying for their parents. A common theme in our society.
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Sapient – but the long term is still 30 years away.
The other problems is rules and entitlements are constantly changed so you have a system that has to cater for many many more situations than it was initially set up for (i.e. non-accident, including cop killer’s suicide bereavement fund)
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@Sapient November 24, 2009 at 11:12 PM
The flaw in that argument, Sapient, is that weekly compensation and vocational rehabilitation cease upon a claimant turning 65 (or, in the case of a claimant becoming entitled to weekly compensation after reaching the age of 65, within 12 months of his or her becoming entitled to it).
Weekly compensation and vocational rehabilitation account for over 60% of ACC claims expenditure, so the “ageing population” argument that young people would fund the claims of older people if the scheme were to revert to Pay As You Go is fallacious. An ageing population actually reduces future claims expenditure, rather than exacerbates it.
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Toad,
Had you of read the 11:16 PM comment you would have seen that I account for this. Yes, people move of it at 65, but those people could have gone on it at any point between 16 and 65. This means that under a pay as you go system you can be on ACC for up to 49 years. This is a lag of, in the most extreme cases, 49 years until the demographics of payment actually represent the demographics of present employment.
If 50% of the population is employed in coal mines and other dangerous activities one can expect a vastly higher incidence of injury, and serious injury, than were that same 50% in industries which were more safe. Employment distribution changes over time. Under the pay as you go scheme these miners would effectively be paying for injuries incurred prior to their payment, even if prior to their payment the majority was employed in less dangerous industry or there was a smaller population; an effective subsidy as their rate of injury will be far higher in percentage and numbers but they don’t have to pay for that. Twenty years latter though their children are employed in different industries, industries that are safer. There are increasingly less of the older, larger, population in the work force. These children have to pay not just for the costs of the dangerous activities of their parents but also incur the cost of having a smaller population to fund those costs and thus a higher effective rate each. Furthermore, because of this lag, the children do not have their decreased risk taking taken into account in their fees as the fees do not cover their risk but that of their parents.
Pay as you go is very much a case of the children paying for their parents. Pay as you go does not react to the real world in time and thus vastly distorts the amounts people pay. Pay as you go only runs smoothly in a growing population with non-changing risk and employment distributions. Pay as you go is very non-green and the only real reason you have to oppose it is the temporary increase in fees to account for what should already be paid. Pre-pay is a far superior idea. This is recognized in part in the form of the Cullen fund with respect to pensioners.
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… and why on earth is there a negative kudos on that post? It is a statement of logic and fact, not of opinion or ideology.
The kudos should be about the merits of the arguement not about if it conflicts with personal ideology or not.
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Has anyone on this site attempted to make a submission to the parlaimentary select comittee and repeatedly failed?
After having written pages of my submission I have made numerous attempts to get past the code window, I used the sound recorder and double checked a number of times to see if I had the correct code.
On a number of occasions I have found that the sound of letters and numbers completely contradicted the code in the window!!!!
I can’t help thinking that someone has been fiddling with the system and that it’s rigged!!!!
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Conspiracy! I call conspiracy!
Conspiracy with a side-dish of ideology!
I fart in your general direction!
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Sap; In case you have missed the point the merrits of the argument as mr. Hague has pointed out that last year ACC was one billion in surplus.
Phil U has indicating that Mr. Key is having a little ‘tate ah tate’ with his buddies in the Australian Insurance business.
So what is your angle? I suggest that you are farting in the wrong direction!!!!
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Considering the $1b is for the fund to cover historical claims, then it would be misleading to call it a surplus.
It would be just like calling the Cullen superannuation fund a surplus.
You’d only all it that if you were trying to mislead people.
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Drakula,
I am not arguing that ACC is failing, I specifically said that I think it is functioning well. But, if I was arguing that ACC was going under and if what Photonz ( November 24, 2009 at 9:25 PM ) said is true then that point it totally redundant.
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