#BHN Healthy people are economically productive - isn't that what Luxon's all about?

Añadido: 2026-05-22

[00:00:00]We at Kōrero believe it is a core function of government to provide health services for its people for all sorts of different reasons, you know, whether they be ethical or moral, but actually surely for an economic point of view.

[00:00:10]Interestingly, another health economist, Andrea Black, wrote a paper for the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists in 2024 and it was called Managed Decline. She used a different data set to No, I think the New Zealand health questionnaires, I think Bill was the She She She She did a pretty significant study there. She estimated um that if we carry on on our current settings, only 6.6% of adult New Zealanders will meet the WHO or New Zealand Human Rights Commission definition of being in good health by 2035.

[00:00:52]6.6% if we carry on on the same settings. Now, you know, um there is a there is an issue with this.

[00:00:58]This ties in interestingly with this issue around productivity cuz you know, this is a catchcry, of course, that we have to raise productivity. But the question is, what is the productive unit in the country? You know, when it comes to health care, it's people. People are the productive units. People's teams, departments, organizations, systems, the system.

[00:01:21]That's the product. They That makes up the productive units of the health system. And actually, you know, um when you underfund them, when you don't value them, when you don't pay them properly, when you don't when you don't trust them, when you don't engage them in decision-making, when you when you when you don't support them to be successful, you know, I mean, of course, productivity is not going to rise. You know, so you know, in a funny sort of a way, what the government are doing are calling for an increase in productivity while undermining the mechanisms to do it.

[00:01:56]You know, so it's kind of it's mad. The other thing that the government are doing and you know, this government probably much more and I would like to see a lot more from you know, labor and the greens if they get in too is this issue of dealing with the issue of population health and the prevention of the of preventable illness. You know, because you know, health systems uh health care systems treat conditions.

[00:02:23]You know, if you don't deal with the drivers of those conditions, many of which sit outside of health, it's going to be very hard to afford a health system to keep up with the demand that's created by you know, the social and commercial determinants of ill health. So, if you want to have an efficient, productive health care system, you need to embed that in a whole of government approach to maintaining and promoting the health and well-being of our people, you know. And so, you know, and you know, I I sometimes say, you know, our our government policy around health is like we pay the firefighters, who are the health care professionals, whilst we enable the arsonists. Yeah. You know, and it's and it's kind of loony.

[00:03:06]And and that's the situation we're in.

[00:03:08]So, there are there's a few there's a lot of misalignments here. So, there's big issues around funding, but there's also there's a lot of issues and Bill points that Bill and Jackie talk about this in the paper. You know, this is a glorious paper and I really recommend your listeners to grab it off the website tomorrow when it comes up and read it and share it with your friends cuz it is compelling reading. You know, because it makes it's plain English and it makes and it makes and it's in common sense, you know.

[00:03:36]>> [music]