Obama's attempts to reform the Health Industry failed. He was thwarted by a coalition of Pharmaceutical Industry and Health Insurance lobbyists, Right Wing Republicans, even more Right Wing Democrats (all of whom have their fingers in the public pie) and by his own timidity. As Michael Moore asked him, "Mr. President, what part of Landslide do you not understand?"
(For more thoughts see: Anticapitalist Models of Health.New Zealand is a much less confrontational culture than the States. Conflict, and especially legal conflict - litigation - is something that Kiwis try to avoid. So instead of having the ability to sue through Civil Law for work-related injuries or disabilities, we have a State insurance system called the Accident Compensation Commission. The idea is that you and your employer pay a portion of your weekly wage that goes into a public fund, out of which disabilities are compensated. It's supposed to avoid all of the palavah of court costs, lawyer's bills etc. and to grant to our citizens a peace of mind that they will be taken care of should anything go wrong. It's a way of avoiding the horrendous costs and wasteages of the American system. At least in theory. The trouble is, the Commission has a huge administrative budget and not a very large income so that it is increasingly reluctant to pay out compensation when it can find any small loophole to justify itself. And as Government policy shows, it is all the time seeking to increase the costs of levies and decrease the cost of payments. This translates down into some idiotic experiences.
I have a minor hearing disability. I can hear reasonably well except when there is a degree of background noise. Then I find myself reading lips just to be sure I get the full drift of what's being said. It doesn't prevent me from functioning in my professional life, but it is a significant inconvenience and it drives my wife, Leonie mad when she has to repeat things or raise her voice. I've had the problem for almost 20 years and it has grown progressively worse with age. I had it diagnosed as soon as I was aware of it and was told that the damage to my hearing was consistent with my having used power tools without wearing ear protection. Now much of my work with power tools has been in the building of my own houses and in working in the (very) noisy woodworking shop at the School of Architecture at the University of Auckland. While it's possible to wear hearing protection in the shop, most people only do it for the immediate task at hand rather than for the duration of their stay in the shop. This is so that it's possible to have conversations about work. The trouble is the background noise is significant, and it is here that I believe much of the damage occurred.
Finally, after much cajoling I went to the audiologist for more tests, and the previous results were confirmed, with some slight worsening in the intervening period. The audiologist was a decent man. He assured me that the cost of the device I needed ($8,000 if you can believe it), along with future cessories, batteries etc. would probably be covered by the ACC. The injury was clearly work-related. He and I duly sent off the application forms, complete with the test results and his professional diagnosis and opinion. Two weeks went by, before the letter arrived. "Denied!"
"Oh!" they said, "Your hearing's damaged alright - nine points of damage on the scale, in fact. But then three points of that is age related (down to six points!), and because you have lived outside of New Zealand for half of your lifetime, we can only count 50% of the remainder (down to 3 points from nine - a 66% reduction!). So we're sorry! Three points doesn't count for compensation. Denied!" Now if you have read some of my stuff you will know that I don't bend to bureaucracy easily. And there is an appeal process. So! I filled out a ten page form outlining the grounds of my appeal, and sent this, complete with the results of another, additional, audiology test (which I had to pay for myself). My reasoning was simple. I pointed out that:
It must have cost them much more than he $8,000 it would have cost to fund my hearing aid to do all of this for which I have already paid as a taxpayer AND an ACC -payer over my years of employment, and as well as now having to pay ANOTHER $8,000 for my own hearing-aid. That's a total cosst of $16,000, PLUS the ongoinmg costs of batteries, accessories, repairs etc. In many ways, I'd rather not hear. Silence is truly golden!
I have a minor hearing disability. I can hear reasonably well except when there is a degree of background noise. Then I find myself reading lips just to be sure I get the full drift of what's being said. It doesn't prevent me from functioning in my professional life, but it is a significant inconvenience and it drives my wife, Leonie mad when she has to repeat things or raise her voice. I've had the problem for almost 20 years and it has grown progressively worse with age. I had it diagnosed as soon as I was aware of it and was told that the damage to my hearing was consistent with my having used power tools without wearing ear protection. Now much of my work with power tools has been in the building of my own houses and in working in the (very) noisy woodworking shop at the School of Architecture at the University of Auckland. While it's possible to wear hearing protection in the shop, most people only do it for the immediate task at hand rather than for the duration of their stay in the shop. This is so that it's possible to have conversations about work. The trouble is the background noise is significant, and it is here that I believe much of the damage occurred.
Finally, after much cajoling I went to the audiologist for more tests, and the previous results were confirmed, with some slight worsening in the intervening period. The audiologist was a decent man. He assured me that the cost of the device I needed ($8,000 if you can believe it), along with future cessories, batteries etc. would probably be covered by the ACC. The injury was clearly work-related. He and I duly sent off the application forms, complete with the test results and his professional diagnosis and opinion. Two weeks went by, before the letter arrived. "Denied!"
"Oh!" they said, "Your hearing's damaged alright - nine points of damage on the scale, in fact. But then three points of that is age related (down to six points!), and because you have lived outside of New Zealand for half of your lifetime, we can only count 50% of the remainder (down to 3 points from nine - a 66% reduction!). So we're sorry! Three points doesn't count for compensation. Denied!" Now if you have read some of my stuff you will know that I don't bend to bureaucracy easily. And there is an appeal process. So! I filled out a ten page form outlining the grounds of my appeal, and sent this, complete with the results of another, additional, audiology test (which I had to pay for myself). My reasoning was simple. I pointed out that:
- For 50% of the 50% f the time they had discounted (for my not being in New Zealand) I had been a child and had had no access to power tools, motorized mowers or any such thing.
- For most of the rest opf the 50% I had been a student, far away from building sitees and mechanized tools
- I laid out the math, pointing out that my actual exposure to power tools amounted to less than 20% of my life
- And of that, probably 80% had been spent in New Zealand.
It must have cost them much more than he $8,000 it would have cost to fund my hearing aid to do all of this for which I have already paid as a taxpayer AND an ACC -payer over my years of employment, and as well as now having to pay ANOTHER $8,000 for my own hearing-aid. That's a total cosst of $16,000, PLUS the ongoinmg costs of batteries, accessories, repairs etc. In many ways, I'd rather not hear. Silence is truly golden!
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