National has released another snippet of its health policy, and this bit is actually good. $10,000 / year student loan write-offs for doctors who work in podunk for three years? It's so blindingly obvious (and cheap - anything less than $10 million / year is pocket change) that I'm shocked the government hasn't done it already.
Sadly, the rest of their (leaked) health policy focuses on subsidising the private health insurance industry, to the tune of at least $40 million a year, with the aim of it putting the elective surgery component of the public health system out of business (rather than vice-versa). It would be nice if our main opposition party focused on what was good for ordinary New Zealanders, rather than looting the state for the benefit of its donors and cronies. But as we're seeing with the US bailouts, that's what right-wing politics is all about these days.
