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Speaker 1: Here's a question for you this morning. How much will

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Speaker 1: ever be enough to spend on health? The answer is

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Speaker 1: there will never be enough, so you've got to do

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Speaker 1: with what you've got. At least that is what Health

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Speaker 1: New Zealand is trying to do. At the moment. We

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Speaker 1: spend thirty billion bucks a year. That's just tax payer

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Speaker 1: money on health. It is middle of the road for

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Speaker 1: the OBCD in terms of percentage of GDP comparisons. Apparently

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Speaker 1: according to Health New Zealand, we're ahead of the likes

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Speaker 1: of the UK, Canada and Sweden, but we're behind France,

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Speaker 1: Switzerland and Germany. I mean, really, what does all this mean?

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Speaker 1: Whether that spending is any good or not is another matter.

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Speaker 1: Ask one hundred people about their experience in the health

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Speaker 1: system and you'll get a hundred different answers. One answer, though,

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Speaker 1: that we should be getting a bit more right, is

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Speaker 1: exactly how much we're spending or planning to spend on health,

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Speaker 1: because how can you know what you're doing unless you

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Speaker 1: know what you're spending and on what. Health New Zealand

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Speaker 1: revised down its deficit for twenty four to twenty five

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Speaker 1: from one point seven billion to one point one What

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Speaker 1: does that mean. It means as recently as October they

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Speaker 1: told us they'd need five hundred million more dollars to

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Speaker 1: run the health system than they did yesterday. That's half

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Speaker 1: a billion bucks difference in less than two months. Why

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Speaker 1: they thought they'd have to pay more for redundancy payments

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Speaker 1: and making up for holiday pay And it seems extraordinary,

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Speaker 1: doesn't it that you could have such a vast difference

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Speaker 1: in such a short space of time. How does this

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Speaker 1: keep happening? It comes after the target surplus for this

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Speaker 1: year fifty four million, somehow more often too, a deficit

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Speaker 1: of seven hundred million. RETTI and Verel are predictably fighting

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Speaker 1: over whose faultness is, as you would expect from politicians.

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Speaker 1: But if we could be a little clearer on the diagnosis,

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Speaker 1: the dollars and the cents being spent, would at least

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Speaker 1: be clearer on exactly what it is we're fighting about.

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Speaker 1: For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge. Listen live

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Speaker 1: to news Talk set be from five am weekdays, or

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Speaker 1: follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.