Nick Smith allows ACC to be judge. jury and executioner

Smith rules out separate ACC review
ACC Minister Nick Smith has ruled out an independent review of elective surgery decisions unless the accident body begins losing a larger number of disputes. Dr Smith emphasised it was difficult to determine whether elective surgery was required primarily as a result of an accident or an underlying condition.

Are you kidding me? Really Nick? You are not going to let an independent review of ACC to occur into their ridiculous unofficial policy of turning down any claim for a public insurance we are all forced to pay using the bullshit excuse of 'underlying condition' UNTIL they start losing more cases in their own dispute process?

Isn't that just a green light for ACC to gerrymander all their disputes? They own the bloody disputes company for Christ's sake! Nick is telling them that if they lose disputes - THEN he will have an independent review of their unofficial policy to turn down any claim based on 'underlying condition'.

It's a joke so transparent its an insult to our collective intelligence. So anyone over 40 with spinal damage will get it rejected by ACC because it's normal 'wear and tear' is it, and in the example being used in this article that 'wear and tear' just happened to magically occur after the patient suffered a prolapsed disc in his neck during a collapsed scrum in a club rugby game last year.

ACC is being privatized by a manufactured crises against the advice of Pricewaterhouse Coopers for the Australian Insurance shark industry who stand to make a $200 million killing and NZ, you’ve let John Key do it because you like him and don’t want to spoil your infatuation.