National has announced it will extend $18 doctor visits to an additional 600,000 lower income New Zealanders. About 1.4 million New Zealanders currently have the cost of visiting their GP capped at $18 through the "Very Low Cost Access" scheme. Mr Coleman said this will now be expanded by introducing $18 GP visits for all Community Service Card holders. "This change means a family of three earning up to $60,000 per year will be able to access $18 GP visits, with children under 13 still able to go for free. "The existing low cost access scheme, the complaint from GPs has been that they are not in it... this is what they have been asking for."

Source: Otago Daily Times August 20, 2017 23:15 UTC