National Party leader Christopher Luxon says the new Health NZ structure will lead to massive bureaucracy with no other health outcomes.
The Government will scrap district health boards (DHBs) across the country and replace them with two authorities known as 'Health New Zealand' and the 'Māori Health Authority', working alongside a Public Health Authority as well.
The Opposition says having a co-governance structure isn't the answer and if elected they would scrap having a separate Māori Health Authority, instead of absorbing it into one.
Luxon thinks it won't improve the health system.
"My view is creating a Health NZ mega authority and mega bureaucracy for a Government that's already added 14,000 more bureaucrats at $2 billion and yet we haven't got better health.
"We're going to spend half a billion dollars with management consultants."
Despite the Opposition's reluctance to be on board with this, the Government says this radical overhaul of the health system will move it from being the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff.
Nine health localities are now being trialled in areas including Porirua, Ōtara and the West Coast.
In two years there will eventually be 60 to 80 of these around the country and their job will be to provide local advice on gaps and needs to the national health authorities.
Health Minister Andrew Little claims it will be "the biggest change in a generation to the way our health services run".
"We've spent many, many years putting money into the expensive end of health which is fixing people up, and much less in doing the preventative stuff," he said.
Overflowing emergency departments, long surgical waitlists, and deep-seated inequities have prompted this major shakeup.
That need for better health is the one thing they all agree on.
