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Australian Health System
The UK NHS gets a bad press , here in the land of plenty the state system is starved of cash to keep the private health system afloat the land of a fair go not here I think?
Reports that patients will be up for another 7 per cent rise in their private health insurance premiums soon (The Age, 13/1) is only half the story. Every increase in these premiums is financed 30 per cent by the private health insurance rebate. That means taxes pay 30 per cent of the increase - which means $200 million less tax revenue available to the Federal Government to spend on the public system. Our patients are struggling to find the $10 co-payment to see their GP as bulk-billing rates fall; they wait on trolleys in emergency departments for hours and days; they wait weeks and months for major operations as the cash-strapped public system struggles to cope. The private health insurance rebate was meant to result in downward pressure on premiums and to deliver shorter waiting lists. It has failed on both counts. Some $3.5 billion in taxes is being spent per year on the private health industry and is therefore not available to be spent on improving and maintaining an efficient public health system available to everyone. To abandon the rebate and spend all that money on the public health system would be fair and economically rational. Is that too much to ask? Dr Tim Woodruff, president, Doctors Reform Society :D :cool: :beer: |
Re: Australian Health System
Originally posted by pommie bastard The UK NHS gets a bad press , here in the land of plenty the state system is starved of cash to keep the private health system afloat the land of a fair go not here I think? Reports that patients will be up for another 7 per cent rise in their private health insurance premiums soon (The Age, 13/1) is only half the story. Every increase in these premiums is financed 30 per cent by the private health insurance rebate. That means taxes pay 30 per cent of the increase - which means $200 million less tax revenue available to the Federal Government to spend on the public system. Our patients are struggling to find the $10 co-payment to see their GP as bulk-billing rates fall; they wait on trolleys in emergency departments for hours and days; they wait weeks and months for major operations as the cash-strapped public system struggles to cope. The private health insurance rebate was meant to result in downward pressure on premiums and to deliver shorter waiting lists. It has failed on both counts. Some $3.5 billion in taxes is being spent per year on the private health industry and is therefore not available to be spent on improving and maintaining an efficient public health system available to everyone. To abandon the rebate and spend all that money on the public health system would be fair and economically rational. Is that too much to ask? Dr Tim Woodruff, president, Doctors Reform Society :D :cool: :beer: :mad: Sounds grim old lad, reading the papers recently and they are saying that hospitals are spending thier budget on repaying bills upto five years old. Mr Blair promised to shorten the waiting lists when they came into power and they did, they cut them in half and made two waiting lists, one waiting to see a doctor and one to have an op. The goverment at last realise they can't afford all the spending promised and have gone very quiet. Funny but only two years ago they were all too keen to throw hundreds of millions at a hugh tent in London they called the millenium dome, it now stands empty. The amount of people contracting hospital superbugs is also scarey, something that should not happen, people die everyday from them. Sad tales all over. |
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