Did the Budget provide enough for Health?
Bill Rosenberg, Policy Director/Economist, NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi
The Health Vote in the 2010 Budget was barely adequate to keep up with rising costs and population growth and ageing, but not adequate to fund new treatments. Instead it funded increases in services at the cost of cuts in others. In addition there are substantial new cost pressures as a result of inflation, forecast by Treasury to peak at 5.9 percent in the year to March 2011.
That is the conclusion of a comparison of the Budget with the analysis the CTU carried out prior to the Budget1 which found that $555 million was required in operational funding to just keep up with rising costs, population growth, and the growth in demand for health services such as that due to availability of new treatments. READ MORE
