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Originally Posted by Juju
Correct me if wrong, but I was on the understanding that ACC would not be privatised, but opened up to competition?
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So what, the employer now chooses the insurer and you're stuck with it even if it's the crappiest outfit in town?
Gives a quick run down of the main points:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0807/S00226.htm
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a 500+ page review by PricewaterhouseCoopers Sydney (PWC). PWC said that they had formed “a moderately strong view that a government monopoly is the best observable mechanism for implementing the ACC employers account”.
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National Party: “The experience of competition in the late 1990s was healthy for ACC. Levy rates are now substantially lower as a result of that experience, and the ongoing prospect of competition.”
Response: The experience was not as rosy. When National last promoted so-called choice in accident compensation one of the providers, a subsidiary of HIH Insurance had up to 40 percent of workplace cover, yet HIH went into liquidation with losses of around $1 billion. Fortunately, the Government had by then changed ACC back to public provision. There was very little collation of any other data when the scheme was privatised in 1990 so National’s statement is speculation, not backed up by the experience of unions, that competition worked.
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PricewaterhouseCoopers compared the current ACC scheme with other delivery models and they said based on available evidence, alternative scenarios (a mix of the systems in Australia, Canada and the US) would:
•have poorer rehabilitation and financial outcomes for the bulk of injury victims whose access is limited to the social welfare and health systems
•have poorer return-to-work outcomes and more variable financial outcomes for the small proportion of people in the fault-based insurance system.
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National's ACC policy directly:
http://www.national.org.nz/Article.aspx?ArticleId=28234