The ACC (short story: our government) pays for accidents, which includes gunshot wounds, not that the poor here shoot each other much here. A couple stabbings a year by the worst drug dealers maybe, and how all teenage love stories should end?
If the NZ government hadn't automatically and unconditionally agreed to pay for all accidents, pregnancies and anything wrong with a child, the hospital themselves would have to pay for every 40 year old deadbeat who thinks they can play rugby in the weekend without losing an ear, they'd be bankrupt by lunchtime tomorrow.
NZ is almost medically deadbeatproof, because our taxes pay for ACC, and ACC pays the hospitals for stupid people who think that sticking a butter knife into a live toaster is a good idea. Stupid people with 40 dollars in their bank account incapable of paying for the services they need if shit got real and their wasn't a massive safety net.
Lets say in America that every time a gangbanger walks in bleeding, that's 30 grand minimum they have to extract from somewhere in the budget, which is probably laying off a couple nurses or porters.
If you are in a job that is worth being shot over, unless you are an idiot, you should be earning enough money to be paying for medical insurance, surely?
"Don't blame the player, blame the game."
What we didn't see, is that nurse being fired, and then being forced to pay for that kids 40 thousand dollar medical bill, because she should not have let that kid in, and did not have the authority to let that kid in.
The casting people punked out.
Casting a black nurse so it seems like purely a financial decision rather than a racism problem was soft. There are plenty of other races out their than black and white, who could have tried to explain that they don't take his kind around here.