[yarg]

> NZ has government provided healthcare.

We really don't. You won't be bankrupted by hospital bills, but the absolute shambles that we're working with is far from an adequately functioning healthcare system.

The ACC (which is meant to cover injuries) often refuses to help, sets impossible burdens of proof, or provides completely inadequate compensation.

And they've only gotten worse since covid (their website still says they require you to be fully vaccinated to visit them - even if you're visiting due to a vaccine injury).

[latentsea]

> NZ has government provided healthcare. We really don't. You won't be bankrupted by hospital bills, but the absolute shambles that we're working with is far from an adequately functioning healthcare system.

We do have it though, and it works, though it's not perfect. Wait times are definitely long unless you go private, but the public system has helped me many times. I've not had to deal with ACC, so I can't speak to that.

In practice if you work for a good company you often get health insurance included or at a discount (at least all the software companies I've worked for have done this), so you get a mix of public/private healthcare and that works pretty decent.

I can't imagine the stress of the nightmare inducing hospital bills you hear about in the US.

[Taniwha]

My experience with ACC (broken achilles full reconstruction, 3 operations in the private system and physio, 80% salary for time off) has only been positive - I know some people have a different experience but IMHO when it works it works really well

[yarg]

When it works sure, but too often the system is adversarial and the behaviour more in line with what you'd see from a private insurer - as opposed to a government entity acting for the good of the people.