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I'm a sole parent with a preschool child, renting and working part time. Childcare costs and support rules affect how many hours I can take on. I am considering my vote in the 2026 New Zealand general election. What do parties propose about the cost and availability of healthcare for children and their parents?
2026 New Zealand election: healthcare costs and access for families
For a sole parent renting and working part-time, healthcare policy matters in two ways:
- What you pay: GP appointments, prescriptions, dental treatment, specialist care and healthcare for your child.
- Whether you can actually get care: GP availability, waiting lists, access to nurses, mental-health support and maternity or women's health services.
The important distinction is that some parties want to make healthcare substantially cheaper or free for everyone, while others favour targeted subsidies, increased funding for providers or changes to how services are delivered.
The 2026 general election is scheduled for 7 November 2026. The comparison below focuses on the policies announced during the campaign, rather than assuming every party's promises are already funded or implemented.
1. What each party is proposing
The following covers the seven parties with significant parliamentary or electoral relevance: National, Labour, the Greens, ACT, New Zealand First, Te Pāti Māori and Opportunity.
Labour
Strong focus on reducing patient costs
Labour's central approach is to make everyday healthcare more affordable.
- GP visits: Three free GP or nurse consultations each year for every person eligible for publicly funded healthcare, through a proposed Medicard.
- Prescriptions: Remove the $5 prescription charge from 1 July 2027.
- Children's dental care: Improve delivery so children actually receive the free dental care they are already entitled to.
- Adult dental care: No new universal free dental-care commitment.
- Women's healthcare: Free referred maternity scans from July 2028 and free cervical screening for women aged 25–69.
- Availability: A Family Doctor Loan Scheme to encourage more doctors to own and operate GP practices. Labour estimates its broader primary-care proposals could free up more than 4.5 million GP appointments annually.
What this could mean for your household: Potentially meaningful savings on your own GP visits and prescriptions, while your child already qualifies for free GP visits and prescriptions under current eligibility rules. The three free visits could be particularly useful if you need to see a GP regularly yourself.
Sources: NZ Election 2026 Health Policies for Resident DoctorsElection 2026Should GP visits or prescriptions be free?
Green Party
Broadest universal free-care ambition
The Greens propose a much broader transformation of healthcare.
- GP visits: Work towards fully free GP and nurse care.
- Prescriptions: More Pharmac funding, although the 2026 manifesto does not clearly specify how or when the $5 prescription charge would be removed.
- Children's healthcare: Universal free healthcare, including diagnosis, treatment and management of illnesses and injuries.
- Dental care: Work towards free dental care for everyone, not just children.
- Mental health: Expand publicly funded mental-health services and train more therapists to eliminate therapy waiting lists.
- Availability: More health professionals, better staffing conditions, mobile health and dental clinics, particularly for rural communities.
- Healthcare delivery: Greater emphasis on publicly owned and publicly funded services, including primary care and mental health.
What this could mean for your household: If implemented, this would address both your child's healthcare costs and your own. Free adult dental care is a particularly important difference compared with Labour and National.
However, the Greens have not provided a specific implementation timetable or individual costings for all these commitments. NZ Election 2026 Health Policies for Resident DoctorsElection 2026Should GP visits or prescriptions be free?
Te Pāti Māori
Strong focus on free whānau healthcare
Te Pāti Māori proposes:
- GP visits: Invest in free primary healthcare for all whānau.
- Prescriptions: Free medication delivery for all whānau.
- Dental care: Free dental care for all whānau, including adults.
- Children's healthcare: Greater investment in whānau-led healthcare for Māori children.
- Availability: Marae-based clinics, mobile health services and stronger Māori-led healthcare providers.
- Mental health: Greater emphasis on culturally appropriate mental-health services and suicide prevention.
- Healthcare delivery: Rebuild and strengthen Māori-led health governance, with a focus on prevention and whānau wellbeing.
What this could mean for your household: The proposed free primary care, medication delivery and dental care would potentially provide substantial financial relief.
An important qualification: these proposals are intended for all whānau in some areas, rather than being restricted to Māori families. The party's broader Māori-led healthcare commitments also aim to improve access and outcomes for Māori communities. Election 2026NZ Election 2026 Health Policies for Resident DoctorsShould GP visits or prescriptions be free?
National
Focus on capacity, medicines and existing entitlements
National's approach is more about expanding healthcare capacity and improving the services available.
- GP visits: Children aged 13 and under continue to qualify for free GP visits. National has not proposed making adult GP visits universally free.
- Prescriptions: The $5 prescription charge remains for most adults, with exemptions for children under 14, people aged 65 and over and eligible Community Services Card holders.
- Medicines: An additional $604 million for Pharmac, funded through reductions in foreign aid outside the Pacific.
- Children's healthcare: Continued access to existing free GP and prescription entitlements.
- Women's healthcare: Free cervical screening for women aged 25–69, from March 2027.
- Availability: More frontline healthcare workers, expanded hospital capacity, online GP consultations and greater use of private-sector capacity to reduce waiting lists.
- Prevention: Expanded bowel and breast cancer screening.
What this could mean for your household: Your preschool child benefits from existing free GP and prescription entitlements. Your own costs are less likely to fall substantially unless you qualify for a Community Services Card or another exemption.
The emphasis is on making services more available rather than introducing universal free adult primary care. NZ Election 2026 Health Policies for Resident DoctorsShould GP visits or prescriptions be free?Election 2026 and health: promises, priorities and delivery
ACT
Focus on provider choice and efficiency
ACT's healthcare approach is based on improving productivity and allowing different healthcare professionals to do more.
- GP visits: ACT does not propose universal free GP appointments. It argues that making appointments free without increasing the number of doctors could increase demand without solving access problems.
- Prescriptions: No commitment to remove the $5 prescription charge.
- Medicines: Increase the proportion of health spending allocated to medicines, aiming for 12% of the health budget by 2033.
- Children's healthcare: No specific new universal children's healthcare entitlement identified in its published election programme.
- Availability: Enable pharmacists to treat more everyday conditions, manage some long-term conditions, order blood tests and adjust medicines within GP-set limits.
- Cancer care: Support a National Cancer Centre with campuses in Auckland and Christchurch, using public and private investment.
ACT has also proposed an additional $400 million for general practice over four years, intended to support GP staffing and practice capacity.
What this could mean for your household: More pharmacy-based services could make some routine healthcare easier to access without waiting for a GP appointment. However, there is no comparable promise of free adult appointments or free adult dental care. Should GP visits or prescriptions be free?NZ Election 2026 Health Policies for Resident Doctors
New Zealand First
Focus on prevention and medicines
New Zealand First's health programme emphasises prevention and changing how primary healthcare operates.
- GP visits: No clear commitment to universally free GP visits.
- Prescriptions: Proposes changes to remove barriers within Medsafe and Pharmac, but no clear commitment to remove the $5 prescription charge.
- Children's healthcare: Emphasis on preventative health, nutrition and healthier lifestyles rather than a new universal free-care entitlement.
- Availability: Restore greater professional autonomy in general practice and introduce health coaches into primary care.
- Prevention: Promote nutrition and vitamin C and D interventions.
What this could mean for your household: There could be benefits from greater emphasis on prevention and easier access to some primary-care services, but the party has not set out a clear commitment to reducing your everyday GP or prescription costs. NZ Election 2026 Health Policies for Resident DoctorsElection 2026 and health: promises, priorities and delivery
Opportunity (formerly The Opportunities Party)
Focus on long-term health-system investment
Opportunity's central proposal is a 10-year, cross-party health plan.
- Healthcare funding: Increase health spending from approximately 7.4% to 9% of GDP.
- GP visits: Increase funding for primary care, but no specific commitment to three free GP visits or universal free appointments.
- Prescriptions: No clear commitment to abolish the $5 prescription charge.
- Children's healthcare: Greater emphasis on prevention and early intervention, rather than a specific new children's entitlement.
- Availability: Strengthen primary care and preventative healthcare through long-term funding.
- Planning: Establish a 10-year plan that is not repeatedly changed with each new government.
What this could mean for your household: The proposed additional funding could improve access to healthcare over time. However, there are fewer specific promises about the amount you would personally save at the GP or pharmacy. NZ Election 2026 Health Policies for Resident DoctorsShould GP visits or prescriptions be free?
2. Comparing the policies that could affect your family most
| Healthcare issue | Main party commitments |
|---|---|
| Free GP visits for adults | Labour, Greens, Te Pāti Māori |
| Free GP visits for children | Already available under current rules for children 13 and under |
| Remove $5 prescription charge | Labour |
| Free dental care for adults | Greens, Te Pāti Māori |
| Children's dental access | Labour proposes improving delivery of existing entitlements |
| Free maternity scans | Labour |
| Free cervical screening | Labour, National |
| Expanded mental-health access | Greens, Te Pāti Māori; National has a longer-term strategy |
| More GP availability | Labour, ACT, National, Opportunity |
| Increased medicine funding | National, ACT, Greens |
Sources: Should GP visits or prescriptions be free?NZ Election 2026 Health Policies for Resident DoctorsElection 2026Policies for Party vote - NZ Election 2026
3. What you already qualify for under current rules
It's worth separating existing entitlements from election promises.
For your preschool child:
- Free standard GP visits, subject to the usual eligibility requirements.
- Free eligible prescriptions.
- Free basic dental services through the publicly funded Community Oral Health Service.
- Access to publicly funded hospital and specialist services when referred and eligible.
For you as a parent:
- Community Services Card subsidies for eligible GP visits and prescriptions.
- Free eligible maternity care if applicable.
- Publicly funded hospital and specialist treatment when eligible.
- Some publicly funded mental-health services, although access and waiting times vary.
A Community Services Card is particularly worth checking if you're working part-time and raising a child on one income. It can reduce the cost of GP appointments and prescriptions, and some services have additional concessions.
You can check eligibility and apply through Work and Income.
4. The biggest practical differences for a sole-parent household
Looking across these policies, I would pay particular attention to five things.
- Whether your own GP appointments become cheaper
Your child's standard GP visits are already free. Your own appointments are where the difference between parties becomes more significant.
Labour's three free visits would offer a specific, predictable benefit. The Greens and Te Pāti Māori have broader free-primary-care ambitions.
- Whether you can afford medicines
Labour's proposal to abolish the $5 prescription charge could help if you or your child regularly need medicines that attract the charge.
National, ACT and NZ First have different approaches to increasing access to medicines, but do not offer the same clear promise to remove that charge.
- Whether your child can get dental treatment
Children's publicly funded basic dental services are already available, but access to appointments and treatment matters.
Labour specifically promises to improve delivery of children's existing entitlements. The Greens and Te Pāti Māori go further by proposing free dental care for adults as well.
- Whether you can access mental-health support
As a sole parent, affordable counselling and mental-health support can be important, particularly when balancing work, parenting and financial pressure.
The Greens have a particularly explicit commitment to expanding publicly funded therapy and eliminating waiting lists.
- Whether services are available when you need them
Free appointments are not much help if you cannot get an appointment around your working hours or your child's needs.
Labour, ACT and National have different proposals for increasing GP capacity. ACT places particular emphasis on pharmacies, while Labour focuses on increasing GP appointments and National on broader service capacity.
5. A word about whether the promises are deliverable
One important caution when comparing these policies is that a promise to make healthcare free is not necessarily a promise that you will receive healthcare quickly.
The New Zealand Medical Journal's October 2026 election analysis highlights several challenges:
- Shortages of doctors, nurses and other health professionals.
- Pressure on hospital waiting lists.
- Difficulties accessing general practice.
- The need for additional funding and infrastructure.
- The risk that removing fees increases demand without increasing available appointments.
It also notes that the parties differ in how much implementation detail and funding evidence they have provided. Election 2026 and health: promises, priorities and deliveryShould GP visits or prescriptions be free?
6. Where to investigate further before voting
These are useful independent resources for checking the actual policy documents:
- Policy.nz – 2026 health policy comparison. Compare individual policies across parties.
- Undecided – GP and prescription costs. Particularly useful for understanding what you might personally save.
- Dental for All – election comparison. An independent campaign assessment of dental policies.
- Resident Doctors' Association – election health policies. A detailed comparison of health funding and workforce proposals.
My overall assessment
If I were comparing these parties specifically on the healthcare financial pressures facing a sole-parent family, I would summarise their differences this way:
| Your priority | Parties with particularly relevant proposals |
|---|---|
| Reducing your own GP costs | Labour, Greens, Te Pāti Māori |
| Reducing prescription costs | Labour |
| Free dental care for the whole family | Greens, Te Pāti Māori |
| Improving children's existing dental access | Labour |
| More publicly funded mental-health care | Greens |
| More pharmacy and alternative healthcare access | ACT |
| More medicines funded by the government | National, ACT |
| Long-term health-system investment | Opportunity |
There isn't one party that necessarily offers the best outcome across every area. The Greens and Te Pāti Māori have the broadest universal free-care ambitions; Labour has some of the clearest specific cost-reduction commitments; and National and ACT put more emphasis on capacity, medicines and alternative ways of delivering care.
One additional consideration: because childcare costs and support rules affect how many hours you can work, I would not assess healthcare policies in isolation. A party's childcare subsidies, Working for Families settings, accommodation support and benefit abatement rules could have as much impact on your household finances as its healthcare policies.
I would compare those alongside healthcare before deciding how to cast your party vote.
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