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In 2020, my report, Pharmac: The right prescription? for the New Zealand Initiative found much to compliment in Pharmac’s pursuit of its statutory duty to obtain the best reasonably achievable health outcomes for eligible people from pharmaceuticals within the subsidy budget. Read more

On Friday, 17 June, the American Food and Drug Administration approved the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines for children over the age of 6 months. The Centres for Disease Control recommended the vaccines the next day. Read more

In February, New Zealand’s PCR Covid testing system fell apart. The Ministry of Health, the Director-General of Health, and the Ministers should have known it would happen. Read more

Bring on the bondholders. New Zealand’s proposed Three Waters Reforms, which would force the amalgamation of council water services into four large providers under convoluted governance arrangements, is an attempted solution to a real problem. Read more

A race-neutral approach to government health (and welfare) spending would give the same treatment to people in the same circumstances. It would ignore irrelevant matters such as race, ethnicity, religion, gender, or creed. Read more

Visitors to New Zealand would have heard of the “land of the long white cloud”. But as they drive around its two large main islands, they will soon think of it as the land of the three waters. Read more