This isn't new. ACC has been in trouble for years.
Last year, 1.6 million of us managed to do something to ourselves which involved money - $4.5 billion dollars worth. That's just on rehab.
The total is $7 billion paid out.
It's an astonishing amount of money - and the problem is what we pay in doesn’t cover what goes out.
ACC run a scheme whereby money is invested in the hope the returns offset the bills.
I personally pay thousands a year and have done for decades. To this day I have never claimed a cent.
The original idea was a no-faults scheme, as opposed to a U.S style scheme where we lay blame and get lawyers.
16,000 people did something to themselves in the garden last year and claimed millions.
Previously physio has been the issue. When does physio stop? Who knows, but let's have another three sessions while we decide.
Go to any doctor with anything that hurts and the first thing they do is start tapping away on the ACC claim.
Like most of these altruistic ideas somewhere along the way we lost the plot.
It might be that we need to tidy this up. Foolishly perhaps, I have always seen ACC as work related. If you injure yourself and can't work, this is its value.
Not if you cut your finger pruning hydrangeas.
We had a family member who was off work for months, I think too many months. They wouldn’t let him back even though he wanted to go back. But they kept saying "oh, just in case".
I wonder if there is too much "just in case".
The risk payments work to a degree. 40 percent of payouts are in construction, manufacturing, agriculture and fishing. I pay as a journalist, even though I'm not a journalist, but they can't work out what I am or how to charge me.
Part of a journalist's risk is being in a war zone. I can tell you journalists generally in New Zealand don’t go to war zones.
Anyway, 1.6 million people with two million claims and all up it cost $7 billion.
In barely over two years basically every single one of us makes a claim.
That's not right, it's not normal and it's why they can't pay their way.
The system doesn’t work.
Mike Hosking is a New Zealand television and radio broadcaster. He currently hosts The Mike Hosking Breakfast show on NewstalkZB on weekday mornings - where this article was sourced.
ACC run a scheme whereby money is invested in the hope the returns offset the bills.
I personally pay thousands a year and have done for decades. To this day I have never claimed a cent.
The original idea was a no-faults scheme, as opposed to a U.S style scheme where we lay blame and get lawyers.
16,000 people did something to themselves in the garden last year and claimed millions.
Previously physio has been the issue. When does physio stop? Who knows, but let's have another three sessions while we decide.
Go to any doctor with anything that hurts and the first thing they do is start tapping away on the ACC claim.
Like most of these altruistic ideas somewhere along the way we lost the plot.
It might be that we need to tidy this up. Foolishly perhaps, I have always seen ACC as work related. If you injure yourself and can't work, this is its value.
Not if you cut your finger pruning hydrangeas.
We had a family member who was off work for months, I think too many months. They wouldn’t let him back even though he wanted to go back. But they kept saying "oh, just in case".
I wonder if there is too much "just in case".
The risk payments work to a degree. 40 percent of payouts are in construction, manufacturing, agriculture and fishing. I pay as a journalist, even though I'm not a journalist, but they can't work out what I am or how to charge me.
Part of a journalist's risk is being in a war zone. I can tell you journalists generally in New Zealand don’t go to war zones.
Anyway, 1.6 million people with two million claims and all up it cost $7 billion.
In barely over two years basically every single one of us makes a claim.
That's not right, it's not normal and it's why they can't pay their way.
The system doesn’t work.
Mike Hosking is a New Zealand television and radio broadcaster. He currently hosts The Mike Hosking Breakfast show on NewstalkZB on weekday mornings - where this article was sourced.
10 comments:
Apparently motorcycles are dangerous and needed a levy hike. Go figure, only a small proportion of motorcycle accidents are from the road riding bikes, the ones that pay a levy!!
No levies on farm/river/beach etc riding accidents.
"no fault system' that also spends swags on tourists that don't need any insurance!!!!!
Another unsustainable system.
Working people / employer pay ACC levies
Self employed pay ACC levies
Non working, unemployed, sickness beneficiaries, beneficiaries in general, children pay nothing and other than an income claim get all the benefits
Perhaps give back bonuses to people who haven't claimed for 5+ years. That could be an incentive to not claim for minor injuries.
If Mike continues to express sceptism of the Labour/Te Pati approach he wil likely find his journalist rate contribution utilised. Utu is very much part of tikanga/te ao.
There is no bonus system for those motorcyclists who have never had a claim. There is no provision for someone who owns more than one motorcycle.
The levy should be on the driver's licence, not the vehicle. (Harder to collect but more just. No licence, no ACC.
I foolishly believed that ACC was a passport for full payment of costs associated with an accident. But if I go to a physiotherapist under ACC he/she will charge me $40. What my question now is' how much does the Physio receive from ACC'? Perhaps some Pysios treat ACC as a veritable river of gold?
I have a work colleague and friend who hurt his back when he fell backwards onto a steel pipe in his garden in sept 2023. He is also on super since 2021. He worked as i do to top it up for a few years. For the past 12 months he has been asking our employer to let him back to work. He feels fit. The employer says acc must sign him off as 100pc fit but the doc wont do so insisting he can do max 8 hour day. Employer says not 100pc as we can do longer days. As a result my friend is on about 700$ a week pre tax acc which ends in Sept. The doc says employer is being the problem. Firm will not budge.
ACC is made for rip off. Thirty years ago family sexual molestation brought an instant $10,000. Many considered parental relations worth less. Then every keyboard operator suffered r.s.i. Farmers and the like had to carefully choose high profit years for injury. In addition to the direct cost there is the formidable cost to society of absurdly elaborate scaffolding, traffic control, and ridiculous court awards etc.
I guess "another" is referring to things like the Waitangi Tribunal and the associated grifting facilitated by our generous benefactors Luxon, Potaka and Goldsmith, et al ...?
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