Hard News: Never let the facts ...
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David Fisher's tremendous story about the battle between Affco and ACC in Wairoa. It's the story of corporate welshing, hired PR, tame politicians, pig-ignorant radio blatherers and one kid's wrecked life.
Great to see an unbiased and thorough examination of this issue. ACC is a big easy lumbering juggernaught of a target which never fails to raise the ire of the uninformed (especially radio talkback knee-jerkers and Sunday Star Times readers, yawn). I have never quite understood why Kiwis are so quick to line up and take pot-shots whenever ACC is in the media, regardless of the veracity of the claims against it. It is not a perfect scheme, but it is streets ahead of the alternatives and remains light years ahead of anything other countries have. Speak to anyone who has had similar injuries to those sustained by the chap at the centre of this issue, and you will soon learn how comprehensive the ACC scheme is. If this same set of affairs had happened in the US, the company, AFFCO would have faced law suits totalling millions and millions of dollars; the victim of the shooting would have had to sue to pay for his rehabilitation (and sell his soul to the lawyers), denying him fast and optimal treatment, and would not receive the unlimited life-long rehabilitation he needs and will get under the ACC scheme. Sadly it is this type of uninformed ACC bashing that skews and shapes public opinion about the scheme and threatens its existence at the hands of a National government (should those feckless wonders get in).
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Does McGillicuddy Serious still exist?
They wound up after the 1996 election. Some friends who were candidates said that it was just getting too hard to be silly enough any more - mainstreams parties such as NZ First and ACT had 'stolen their centre' so to speak.
I also wonder why AFFCO's making all the noise? Surely its the insurance company thats up for the million dollars? Or were they "self insured"? Or did they not insure themselves properly against all the risks they were relieving ACC of?
They were presumably self-insured. Once you're big enough you can cover the risk of covering a couple of hundred employees and as long as you don't get any really big claims, it's a saving not to be insured, on the averages. The profit that the insurance company would have made, you end up saving.
Of course, if you suddenly find you're liable for the lifetime costs of an employee who gets shot in your carpark...
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Of course, if you suddenly find you're liable for the lifetime costs of an employee who gets shot in your carpark...
Then your legal and risk analysis teams need firing. Besides, while 'crippled for life by a bullet' is a pretty unlikely event, I can't imagine there are any shortage of other ways you could end up with an employee in the same state in a meatworks.
And, let it be reinforced that AFFCO aren't paying his full costs, only about 10% of them. The rest of us are picking up the other 90%, after AFFCO have spent years paying nothing into the communal pool. Someone's getting ripped off, all right, and I don't think it's AFFCO.
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Oh I wasn't defending them. Just pointing out how the finances probably work out well for them about 90% of the time.
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