Editorial - June 26, 2012

Issues for ACC

At the root of the problem no doubt is the fact of human nature, that some people, many perhaps, will take whatever they can get. All is clearly not well at ACC. Revelations of privacy breaches, albeit apparently historical, continue to surface with alarming regularity, and the corporation's response to clients can be less than helpful, or even courteous, if the anecdotal evidence is to be believed.

The security breaches should be easily remedied, whether they be the result of inadequate policies, training or staffing. We have learned in recent weeks that everyone within the organisation seemingly has access to every file, which seems odd, but the inadvertent dispatching of information to unintended recipients is not unheard of in the computer age. Any number of presumably intelligent people, here and overseas, have discovered that with wayward emails over recent years, and for all the gnashing of teeth much of the ACC information that has turned up in odd places has been relatively innocuous.

That doesn't mean there isn't a problem, and the clients whose details, however basic, have ended up in the wrong hands may have every right to feel aggrieved, but the response to some of these breaches may have been a little out of proportion.

The bigger issues facing ACC are its on-going funding, the rate at which it is apparently abused and the way it treats its clients.

A Kaitaia man who ended up in ACC's tender clutches as the result of being struck in the eye with a paintball pellet is far from impressed. He claims that information regarding his injury was not passed on within ACC (a failing which appeared to have been rectified once his predicament became public knowledge), and that he remained ignorant of his rights and obligations for six weeks after the accident, which cost him financially by way of prescription charges and a week's holiday pay, granted by his employer to help him meet his living expenses whilst unable to work. ACC had queried the medications he had been prescribed and his inability to return to work, at a time when medical advice was to stay in bed and not move his head.

It is ACC's obligation to ensure that claimants are genuine. That goes without saying. And it would be unreasonable to argue on one hand that ACC abuse needs to be dealt with much more effectively than it apparently is, and on the other that the word of claimants should be accepted without question. We can't have it both ways, but surely there is a happy medium, where claimants and the people who are treating them are asked, politely, for relevant information, yet where those who claim to be unable to work but maintain a lifestyle that suggests otherwise are weeded out.

It is hardly surprising that people who have never before encountered bureaucracy of this type don't take kindly to it, and perhaps there needs to be a greater effort on their part to understand that bureaucracy, but the perception these days is that ACC has become a monster, whose sole aim is to prevent genuine claimants from receiving what they are entitled to, or at least making the experience as unpleasant as it can be. ACC is simply an insurance scheme, however, the only difference between it and any other insurance company being that premiums are paid compulsorily. There would be plenty of people who have had unsatisfactory encounters with other insurance companies, and ACC is hardly alone in trying to minimise claims.

At the root of the problem no doubt is the fact of human nature, that some people, many perhaps, will take whatever they can get. This has long been true of social welfare, which originally depended upon people generally taking care of themselves and their dependents, only looking for support from the state (once regarded as charity) as a last resort. It is very different now. Money from the government is widely regarded as a right.

Perhaps the problem for ACC is that it has become so comprehensive, meeting the costs incurred not only by those who suffer serious injury and who genuinely need financial support for treatment and rehabilitation, perhaps for the rest of their lives, but also those incurred by those who have suffered nothing more than a minor mishap.

A man who is struck in the eye with a paintball pellet, who might well lose his eye, who clearly cannot function as he did before the accident, who has been told that he should be in bed and moving as little as possible, should not be expected to go back to work as if nothing had happened. The same cannot be said for someone whose arm is raked by his favourite rose bush when he is weeding his garden.

This newspaper ran a story several years ago detailing some of the quirkier incidents that had given rise to ACC claims. They included a quite extraordinary number of people who had been injured by their cats. There were other equally undeserving claimants, and all supported the view that ACC shouldn't be fussing about the sort of injury that might warrant a tetanus jab but would otherwise be no more serious than deserving a sticking plaster so it can do a better job of helping those who really do need help.

That's probably not going to happen - acceptance that conceiving a child because the father's vasectomy didn't work would entitle the mother to ACC until the child reaches the age of 16 does not bode well for those who would like to see calls for compensation reduced rather than expanded - but it should be on the Minister's mind.

Reducing the range of compensatable injuries, and thereby saving ACC the cost of a doctor's visit and perhaps basic medication, would have several benefits. It would reduce the pressure on ACC to deliver the service claimants expect, it would presumably reduce the levies every New Zealander pays - the cost of administering petty claims must be astronomical - and it would at least delay arrival at the point where the whole system becomes too expensive and cumbersome to maintain.

There is no reason why someone who suffers a very minor injury should not take care of it themselves without troubling ACC. Indeed the process of filing a claim can be more traumatic than the injury itself. The smallest of claims produces reams of documents. Letters, medical reports and who knows what else fly backwards and forwards, and when it's all over the claimant receives another wad of documents basically thanking them for their patronage and pointing out what a great job ACC does.

Wouldn't it be better for all concerned if the victim of the gardening injury shot down to the local pharmacy and got something for it? Or called in on their GP if they thought that was necessary? Or just put a plaster on it, had a cup of tea and pondered the virtues of lawn? Goodness knows how much it costs levy payers to process a claim for the few dollars a GP charges, but it must be many times the medical expense incurred. That simply doesn't make sense.

In the meantime we might cut ACC some slack when it comes to efforts that are apparently being made to wean claimants off the scheme and get them back to work. We don't like it when our levies go up, we don't like it when the bloke next door is clearly a malingerer, and we don't like it when ACC tries to get him off its books. It seems we're never happy.