What's really going on with ACC?

Sent in by a BRM reader

To BRM,

Howzit going? Thought you might like to read this article from our local labour MP from one of our local papers called D-Scene.

PS have been reading your mag for over 2 and half years now. Love it. Keep it up.

Dave

Type extracted from the above article

Whats really going on with ACC?

How come the Government reckons ACC is broke when last year it received $1 billion dollars more in levies than it paid out to accident victims?

Answer, it isn’t broke; the Government just wants you to believe it is.

ACC levies are rising, accident prevention is being reduced, accident cover is being reduced, ACC caregivers are having a pay cut and part of the scheme is about to be privatised to Aussie insurers. What on earth is going on?

Well, first the government beat up a storm. They dramatically opened the books just when ACC’s share market investments had reached an all time low to declare, well, a lose. No surprises there. All investments were bottoming just then because of the global recession. ACC’s investment had since recovered dramatically.

Next it decided to hike levies, especially for motorcycles, because motorcyclists get injured a lot. Fine, except many injuries are caused by cars.

So who’s next? Cyclists? Pedestrians?

Beside ACC is a no-fault social insurance scheme. It is not designed to isolate and penalise high accident groups. If it were then kids playing sport would be levied. So would 80-year-olds prone to falling and breaking a hip.

Next is had cut prevention scheme. Like the Otago Exercise programme for over 80’s. Otago Medical School research shows this reduces falls by 35 percent. Cutting it is false economy.

ACC caregivers will now have to use their own car at their own cost to provide care to victims.

Anyone who has a variation in their earnings over a year will now get less. Sexual abuse victims have to clear a higher hurdle to be accepted for cover. And on, and on, it goes.

To top it off the Aussie insurers are being invited back in to take a slice of the profits. Just like they were at the end of the nineties. That experiment was a failure. So much so that in 2000 the incoming Labour government brought the privatised portions back under ACC. Just in time as I happens; in 2001 HIH (a big Aussie insurer) went bust; costing Aussie taxpayer’s half a billion dollars.

Some levy increases ARE justifiable as ACC moves from what’s called pay-as-you-go to fully funded; a bit like the Cullen fund for National Superannuation.

But for the most part this is about ideology. Under this is government ideology will trump commonsense. We will pay more and get less. ACC is the best scheme of its sort in the world, the envy of many nations. Leave it alone.