National pledges $820m for Pharmac, funded by aid cuts outside Pacific
National has promised more than $820 million for Pharmac and other health programmes, paid for in large part by cutting foreign aid outside the Pacific RNZ.
The core of the plan is a $604 million increase to Pharmac's medicines budget over four years Stuff. Pharmac is the government agency that buys medicines for public hospitals and pharmacies. National said a 10 percent cut to foreign aid would help pay for it. More than half the money for the wider plan would come from non-Pacific aid.
The proposal also includes funding for cancer screenings 1News. On National's website the policy is listed as "More medicines for Kiwis at home" and attributed to health spokesperson Simeon Brown. The party says a re-elected National Government would put New Zealand patients first by bringing money back from overseas to fund more medicines.
Leader Christopher Luxon and Brown announced the policy at a private hospital in Auckland. Luxon said he had not spoken to NZ First leader Winston Peters about the policy before announcing it.
Peters rejected the approach. He described the promise as desperate and dangerous. Peters has served as Foreign Minister during the current coalition term, so the aid budget sits inside his portfolio.
ACT leader David Seymour welcomed the policy. He said his party would push a future coalition to go further and faster. Seymour has served as the minister responsible for Pharmac during the current term.
Seymour said National's policy is about one-third of what ACT is proposing. ACT has campaigned on lifting the medicines budget from 4.9 percent of the health budget to Australia's 12.2 percent level, at 1 percentage point a year RNZ.
He made no criticism of the funding method. One coalition partner attacked the cut. The other said the increase did not go far enough.
The broader context here is coalition management under MMP, the voting system that usually means no party can govern alone. Parties routinely announce their own policies during the campaign without sign-off from partners. But announcing a cut to a budget run by another partner, without a call beforehand, leads to a public rebuke. Voters are left to weigh extra spending on medicines at home against the diplomatic and development case for aid abroad.
Looking at what this means for post-election talks, each party has laid down a marker. National has fixed its number and its funding source. NZ First has put its opposition to that source on the record. ACT has described National's number as a floor, not a ceiling. None of that prevents a deal. It does narrow the room for private compromise, because each position is now public.
