23 April 2001 Media Statement

Community Services Card to be reviewed

Health Minister Annette King announced today that the Cabinet has increased funding for Community Services Card provision to ensure that no superannuitant or beneficiary loses their entitlement to it as a result of the social security adjustments which took effect from 1 April.

Annette King also said that the Cabinet had decided to review the future of the Community Services Card.

"In the Government's view, the card has always been a blunt instrument in terms of securing access to affordable health care for low income New Zealanders.

"The former Government introduced the Card as a sop to low income New Zealanders at the time they introduced market-based reforms and user pays to hospital services. The card has been used as the main mechanism to attract government subsidies for GP care, but the Government believes that we must move from a fee for service model to population-focused capitation funding.

"We have got to restore a sense of fairness and balance to health funding for low-income New Zealanders."

"The National Health Committee report on primary care, issued last year, and the Government's own Primary Health Care Strategy both flagged the need to move to a population focus, and this direction received a high level of support from the health sector.

"We must ensure we spend our primary health care dollars where they do the most good," Annette King said.

ENDS

© Scoop Media

Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>