2026 New Zealand election: health policy comparison

For someone living with a long-term health condition, three questions are particularly important when comparing parties:

1. Affordable GP care: Can you see your GP regularly without having to choose between healthcare and other living expenses?
2. Specialist access: Can you get referred to a specialist and receive treatment within a reasonable time, without having to pay privately?
3. Medicines: Will the medicines you need be funded, and can you afford prescriptions and ongoing treatment?

There are meaningful differences between the parties contesting the 7 November 2026 general election. The comparison below focuses on National, Labour, the Greens, ACT, NZ First, Te Pāti Māori and the Opportunity Party.

One important distinction: a promise to increase health funding is not necessarily a promise to reduce your GP fees, shorten your specialist wait or fund a particular medicine. I'll distinguish between specific commitments and broader intentions.

1. Affordable GP appointments

This is one of the clearest differences between the parties.

Party	GP affordability proposal
Labour	Three free GP or nurse visits each year for everyone through a Medicard.
Greens	Work towards fully free, publicly delivered primary care, including GP and nursing services.
Te Pāti Māori	Invest in free primary healthcare for all whānau, including Māori-led clinics and mobile services.
National	Additional funding for GP practices and a fee-holding arrangement until July 2027, with exceptions. No new universal free-GP election commitment identified.
ACT	An additional $400 million for general practice over four years to support staffing and capacity. Does not promise free GP visits.
NZ First	Proposes more doctors, nurse practitioner-led digital clinics and greater GP autonomy. No clear universal free-GP commitment identified.
Opportunity	Supports a long-term health funding plan and greater investment in primary care. No specific free-GP commitment identified.

Sources: Should GP visits or prescriptions be free?NZ Election 2026 Health Policies for Resident DoctorsElection 2026 and health: promises, priorities and delivery

What this could mean for someone needing frequent appointments:

• Labour's three free visits could help with routine consultations, but three visits may not cover someone requiring monthly or fortnightly medical reviews.
• The Greens' and Te Pāti Māori's proposals aim for broader removal of primary-care charges, although their 2026 commitments do not specify a full implementation timetable.
• National's approach focuses on funding practices to maintain capacity and temporarily restrain fees rather than removing fees altogether.
• ACT's approach seeks to increase the supply of GP services without promising that appointments will become cheaper for patients.

One important point: GP practices generally set their own fees. A funding increase does not automatically mean that every patient pays less.

2. Specialist appointments and hospital treatment

For people with chronic conditions, specialist access can be just as important as GP affordability.

Here are the main differences in the parties' approaches.

Party	Specialist and hospital access
National	Expanding elective treatment capacity, using public and private providers, and setting measurable health targets. Budget 2026 supports additional planned-care treatments and hospital activity.
Labour	Focuses on primary-care affordability, more GP appointments, nursing capacity and hospital infrastructure. Its published programme is less detailed on specialist waiting-time reform.
Greens	Emphasises publicly funded community healthcare, improved workforce conditions, rural services and increased access to preventive care.
ACT	Supports using private providers to reduce public waiting lists and expanding the roles of pharmacists and other healthcare professionals.
NZ First	Proposes a $925 million annual GP-controlled Waitlist Reduction Fund, allowing GPs to purchase approved specialist consultations and operations for patients on waiting lists.
Te Pāti Māori	Emphasises Māori-led healthcare, community-based services and improving equitable access.
Opportunity	Proposes a 10-year cross-party health plan, more primary-care investment and progressively increasing health expenditure towards 9% of GDP.

Source: New Zealand Medical Journal's October 2026 election analysis. Election 2026 and health: promises, priorities and deliveryElection 2026 and health: promises, priorities and delivery

A particularly important difference:

NZ First's proposed Waitlist Reduction Fund is a specific mechanism for helping patients who are waiting for specialist appointments or operations.

National and ACT also support using private-sector capacity to reduce waiting times, whereas the Greens and Te Pāti Māori place greater emphasis on publicly funded and community-based healthcare.

However, none of these broad proposals automatically guarantees that a particular person with a long-term condition will receive a specialist appointment within a specified number of weeks.

3. Medicines and ongoing prescriptions

This is especially relevant if you take several medicines or need expensive specialist-prescribed treatment.

Party	Medicines policy
National	Reports funding 66 additional medicines, including 33 cancer treatments. Has maintained the $5 prescription charge for many adults.
Labour	Promises to remove the $5 prescription charge from 1 July 2027 for people eligible for publicly funded healthcare.
Greens	Supports increased Pharmac funding for medicines and medical devices.
ACT	Proposes increasing the proportion of the health budget spent on medicines by one percentage point annually, aiming for Australian-level spending by 2033.
NZ First	Proposes replacing Pharmac with a new medicines agency and providing an additional $1.3 billion for medicines.
Te Pāti Māori	Supports increased Pharmac funding and free medication delivery for whānau.
Opportunity	Supports a longer-term approach to strengthening health funding; a specific medicines-cost commitment was not established in the material reviewed.

Sources: Election 2026 and health: promises, priorities and deliveryNZ Election 2026 Health Policies for Resident DoctorsShould GP visits or prescriptions be free?

What about the $5 prescription charge?

Under the current arrangements:

• Many adults aged 14–64 pay $5 per funded prescription item.
• People with Community Services Cards, children under 14 and people aged 65 and over are exempt.
• Once a family has collected 20 prescription items in a year, further prescription charges are waived for that year.

Labour has explicitly promised to remove the charge for everyone eligible for publicly funded healthcare from July 2027.

The Greens and Te Pāti Māori support broader free-care approaches, but their current manifestos do not provide the same specific prescription-charge implementation date.

An important distinction for people with complex conditions: increasing Pharmac's budget does not necessarily mean that every medicine currently unfunded will become available. Pharmac still needs to make funding decisions about individual medicines.

Should GP visits or prescriptions be free?Election 2026 and health: promises, priorities and delivery

4. What about your income support and ability to work?

Healthcare policy is only part of the picture.

If a long-term condition limits your ability to work, you may also want to examine each party's policies on:

• Supported Living Payment and Jobseeker Support for people with health conditions or disabilities.
• Income thresholds and eligibility rules.
• Disability Allowance for ongoing health-related expenses.
• Transport assistance for medical appointments.
• Home support, personal care and disability services.
• Whether people with fluctuating or episodic conditions are adequately supported.

I would pay particular attention to whether a party's health proposals are accompanied by commitments on disability support and income adequacy.

A free GP appointment is useful, but it does not necessarily help with transport costs, specialist travel, dental care, non-funded medicines or the everyday costs of living with a long-term condition.

5. The practical differences at a glance

Here is another way of looking at the parties, based on the particular problems you have raised.

Your priority	Specific proposals worth examining
Reducing GP fees	Labour, Greens, Te Pāti Māori
More GP capacity	National, ACT, Labour, NZ First
Reducing specialist waiting lists	NZ First, National, ACT
More publicly funded primary care	Greens, Te Pāti Māori
Removing prescription charges	Labour
Increasing medicines funding	ACT, NZ First, Greens, National, Te Pāti Māori
Long-term health-system planning	Opportunity

These are policy areas, not party rankings. Several parties have overlapping commitments, but the scale, funding and implementation details differ.

6. Important questions to ask before voting

The New Zealand Medical Journal makes an important point in its election analysis: free healthcare does not automatically mean accessible healthcare. You still need enough doctors, nurses, specialists and facilities to deliver it. Election 2026 and health: promises, priorities and delivery

For someone with ongoing medical needs, I would suggest checking these five questions against each party's manifesto:

1. If I need six or twelve GP appointments annually, how much will I actually pay?
2. Will I get faster access to publicly funded specialists, investigations and treatment?
3. Will the medicines I currently need remain funded, and will new medicines become available?
4. Will disability-related support and income assistance keep pace with living costs?
5. How will the party fund its proposals, and when will they actually take effect?

7. Where to investigate the policies further

These resources provide useful additional information:

• Policy.nz – Compare 2026 party health policies. An independent election policy comparison.
• Undecided – GP and prescription costs. Detailed comparison of charges, free appointments and party commitments.
• New Zealand Medical Journal – Election 2026 and health. Medical-sector analysis of health promises and their delivery challenges.
• Vote.nz. Official voting information.

One further consideration

There is an important distinction between choosing a party that promises a better health system generally and choosing one whose policies directly address the financial and practical challenges of living with a chronic condition.

I can make this comparison more useful by looking at the policies that matter to your circumstances, without making assumptions about your diagnosis or telling you how to vote.

One question: Is your biggest financial difficulty currently the cost of regular GP appointments, the cost and availability of medicines, or the combination of specialist appointments and travelling for treatment?

That will help me examine the relevant party commitments more closely, including disability and income-support policies.