Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Max Harris: ActionStation Campaigner on eye watering costs of current approach to dental healthcare

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Max Harris: ActionStation Campaigner on eye watering costs of current approach to dental healthcare · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

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  Speaker 1: A new report out this morning shows the eye watering social, economic,
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  Speaker 1: and fiscal costs of the current approach to dental healthcare
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  Speaker 1: in this country. It shows our current dental policy settings
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  Speaker 1: cost two point five billion in lost productivity. It's responsible
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  Speaker 1: for further costs when sick days, impatient care, and cardiovascular
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  Speaker 1: disease are all taken into account. Apparently this prompting calls
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  Speaker 1: for universal dental care. Max Harris is the Action Station
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  Speaker 1: campaigner with us this morning. Max, Good morning, Good morning, Ryan,
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  Speaker 1: nice to be on. Nice to have you on the show.
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  Speaker 1: First of all, because I said to my producer Leo,
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  Speaker 1: I said, hang on, who's done this report? So your
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  Speaker 1: Action Station? What is Action Station?
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  Speaker 2: Action Stations an organization that works on campaigns and policy.
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  Speaker 2: But the report is actually been done by Frank Advice
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  Speaker 2: in Wellington using a Treasury mythodology.
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  Speaker 1: Right, So you, I mean you guys have been accused
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  Speaker 1: of being a left wing kind of group, are you?
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  Speaker 2: No? I don't think so. Staction Session call itself kind
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  Speaker 2: of broadly progressive and talks about using values. But we
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  Speaker 2: know we run a range of campaigns on community issues,
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  Speaker 2: kind of responding to concerns in the community and one
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  Speaker 2: that's come up in the last few years has been dental.
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  Speaker 2: And actually quite a lot of people on the right
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  Speaker 2: and left have talked about what a problem it is
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  Speaker 2: that we have to pay so much for dental in
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  Speaker 2: this country. And that's what's prompted this report.
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  Speaker 1: And Frank group, the group that's done the report, are
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  Speaker 1: they have they got economists in there? I mean, is
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  Speaker 1: economists looked over this report.
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  Speaker 2: This was this was authored by someone of the backgrounds
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  Speaker 2: in economics. Frankovises connections to impact lads so that they
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  Speaker 2: do a lot of work on things like social investments. So, yes,
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  Speaker 2: very much. This was authored by an economist using an
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  Speaker 2: approach by treasury.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, all right, so you've got an economist on the job.
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  Speaker 1: Let's talk about what does it that actually say.
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  Speaker 2: So what the report does is, you know, a lot
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  Speaker 2: of the time when we talk about what it would
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  Speaker 2: take to address dental in this country, we focus on
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  Speaker 2: the costs, and that's fair enough. But the report looks
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  Speaker 2: at the cost of not doing anything about dentals and
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  Speaker 2: it comes up with some pretty interesting numbers. I think. So,
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  Speaker 2: for example, is that the cost of not providing deal
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  Speaker 2: care in the publics in this country is three point
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  Speaker 2: one billion in terms of quality of life and two
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  Speaker 2: point five billion in terms of lots of products. Yes,
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  Speaker 2: things like people not going for job interviews, not because
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  Speaker 2: of the shame of stigmas.
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  Speaker 1: Hey, Max, I'm really sorry. We're gonna have to We're
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  Speaker 1: gonna have to cut the short I think because your
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  Speaker 1: phone line is terrible. Sounds like you're coming to us
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  Speaker 1: from a toilet. That's very annoying. That's Max Harris Action
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  Speaker 1: station campaigner. So the report, as you heard where it's
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  Speaker 1: come from. But the report looks at a couple of things.
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  Speaker 1: It looks at not just the physical cost, the straight
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  Speaker 1: fiscal cost of how much a universal system would cost you,
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  Speaker 1: but also things like sick days and the economic impact
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  Speaker 1: and loss productivity and all that kind of stuff. For
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