Health
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Elizabeth Elliott. Compassion goes missing on Christmas Island
When it comes to children in need, most Australians feel compassion. Most will applaud today’s announcement that ‘Boat Kids’ will be released into the community. However this decision does not go far enough. It includes only kids aged less than 10 years (excluding many vulnerable teens); only those detained on the Australian mainland (excluding kids Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Who owns Medibank Private?
The government has announced that it hopes to raise $4 billion from the sale of Medibank Private. But like many of its budget ‘savings’ it might find that it has to rely in this case on the High Court rather than the Senate to decide if the $4 billion ‘saving’ can be realised. The case Continue reading »
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Peter Sivey. Health budget: GP care isn’t the problem, costly specialist care is.
The opening of eight new medical schools in Australia in the past decade has seen a massive increase in the number of new doctors entering the workforce. The number of new junior doctors graduating in Australia doubled between 2004 and 2011. But while fears of an overall shortage of doctors seem assuaged, we don’t have the right mix Continue reading »
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How does Australia’s health system compare.
The Treasurer, the Minister for Health and the Commission of Audit have warned us in one way or another that the Australian health service is unsustainable, particularly with an ageing population. The Treasurer tells us that the age of entitlement has to end in health as elsewhere. We need to keep modernising Medicare but by Continue reading »
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Turning the federation clock back to 1901.
The Commission of Audit has made many unhelpful suggestions about budgetary and economic issues. It seems to have been driven more by ideology than fact. See my blog of May 1 2014 “The Commission of Audit and facing the wrong way”. One of its most unhelpful suggestions is that Australia returns to the 1901 intentions Continue reading »
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Rod Tiffen. ‘The Australian’ and tobacco consumption.
As the Australian approaches its 50th anniversary amid much self-congratulation, an insight into its editorial standards and how it conducts itself in controversies is provided by its recent reporting of competing claims over tobacco consumption. Tobacco is still the largest preventable source of premature death in the world. Despite the scale of its damage the Continue reading »
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Woolworths and Pharmacies.
The response of the Australian Pharmacy Guild (APG) to Woolworth’s proposal for free health checks was entirely predictable. It was about protecting the territory of pharmacists. But the APG did have a point. Are the leviathan department stores who sell large amounts of alcohol and tobacco really serious about our health? I don’t think so? Continue reading »
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Out-of-Pocket Costs in Australian Healthcare and the $7 Co-payment.
In my blog of May 12 on health co-payments I set out my objections to the proposal including that we already have a very high level of co-payments, that they are a “dogs breakfast” and that the proposal on its own would be unfair. The debate has moved on since then which raises further concerns Continue reading »
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Jane Tolman. Dementia: how did we get it so wrong?
In the past few weeks I have had the privilege of participating in the second running of the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on Understanding Dementia run by the Wicking Dementia Research and Education Centre at the University of Tasmania. This has provided a forum for learning and discussion about dementia for 15,000 carers, health Continue reading »
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Mary Chiarella. Nurses – debt and job satisfaction.
In the AFR Laura Tingle rightly points out that nurses do not tend to fit the mould as one of those groups of fortunate students who may reap significant income returns for the cost of their university education. She goes on to point out that “modelling released by Universities Australia this week suggest nurses’ uni Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Have we too many doctors?
There are no international comparisons that I can find that show that we have a shortage of doctors in Australia. In fact, we may be moving into a situation of having a surplus of doctors. In its “Health at a glance” the OECD found that we are above the average in our supply of doctors. Continue reading »
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John Menadue. The Blame Game in health
Attempts to resolve the Commonwealth/State blame game have been unsuccessful and expensive. Time and time again federal governments try and buy off state criticism by spending more taxpayer’s money without any real improvements in the delivery of health services. This futile blame game is not surprising in a federation where there are nine departments of Continue reading »
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Stephen Leeder. Electronic medical records for patients!
Australia embarked on an ambitious journey when it committed to developing a medical record that would go with each patient to whatever health care provider they consulted. “The eHealth record system — launched in June 2012 — is an electronic record for a patient that contains a summary of their health information.” http://www.nehta.gov.au/our-work/pcehr This personally-controlled Continue reading »
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Michael Keating. Part 5. Federalism
The Government’s Commission of Audit, which preceded this Budget, recommended that policy and service delivery should as far as practicable be the responsibility of the level of government closest to the people receiving those services, and that each level of government should be sovereign in its own sphere, with minimal duplication between the Commonwealth and Continue reading »
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Michael Keating. Part 3. An Alternative and Better Budget Structure
In two previous blogs I have argued that the Government’s Budget broadly got the economics right, but it failed the test of fairness and it attacks our traditional values. In that case, however, what would the alternative Budget structure look like? Fundamentally the Budget should have relied much more on taxation and less on expenditure Continue reading »
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Jennifer Doggett. Budget 2014 – Primary Health Care
While some commentators are calling this Budget ‘The end of universal health care’ others are seeing some opportunities to improve health system performance, in particular through better collaborations with state-funded health services and programs. The most high profile Budget measures in the primary health care sector are the introduction of new co-payments for bulk billed Continue reading »
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Fran Baum and Sara Javanparast. Demise of Medicare Locals.
Demise of Medicare Locals: impact on community health, partnership and PHC research Fran Baum and Sara Javanparast Southgate Institute for Health, Society and Equity, Flinders University, Adelaide Tuesday’s budget announced the abolition of the 61 Medicare Locals and that they will be replaced with an unknown but smaller number of Primary Health Networks. Regional Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Seven dollar GP co-payment – and an unintended consequence
If the co-payment takes effect, it is likely to result in an increase in doctor’s fees. As Ian McAuley has pointed out, the attraction of bulk-billing for the doctor is that it removes the cost of handling and accounting for transactions. The invoice is sent directly to Medicare. Once the doctor is obliged to handle Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Health Co-payments and $7 for a GP visit!
We do need to take action to curb our visits to the doctor. In 1984-85 we averaged about 7 Medicare services per head. By 2012-13 it had doubled to over 15 Medicare services per head. The increase was across all age groups and not just for the elderly. Bulk billing, fee for service, and the ability Continue reading »
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Ian McAuley. Pay for a GP visit.
The Commission of Audit’s proposal to charge a $5 or $6 fee for “bulk-billed” GP services has little to commend it. But that doesn’t justify knee-jerk outrage from medical and consumer groups, or from the Labor Opposition, for there is no reason why Medicare should not incorporate fixed and limited co-payments. As it stands the Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Taxes – public or private
The Commission of Audit has recommended that a Medicare levy surcharge be applied to individuals earning more than $88,000 a year and $176,000 for families. This is designed to force high income earners to take out private health insurance. This is one of the most economically stupid and dangerous proposals that I have seen for Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Do our governments spend too much or do they raise too little in taxation?
This a repost and provides a summary of the submission that Ian McAuley, Jennifer Doggett and I made to the Commission of Audit. John Menadue The Minister for Health, Peter Dutton, has said that we must reduce waste and cut costs in health. (I responded to this in my blog on 3 February “Cutting waste Continue reading »
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This is about more than a bottle of wine
To mix my metaphors, the bottle of red wine that Barry O’Farrell received is only the tip of an iceberg – a sleezy world of lobbying, influence-peddling and corruption. Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Citizenship and shared experience.
The recent decision by the NSW Government to evict pensioners and low-income tenants from the Rocks in Sydney highlighted for me the importance of mixed communities and shared experiences. We all benefit in society when we have shared experiences. We can then get to know other people’s aspirations and their problems. We invariably find that Continue reading »
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John Dwyer. Primary healthcare in Australia reaches the crossroads.
When I graduated some 50 years ago more than 50% of my class pursued careers as General Practitioners. In the last available survey of the career intentions of graduating medical students only 13% said they were interested in Primary Care and only 13% of those who would consider a career in rural Australia. Currently more Continue reading »
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Ian McAuley, Jennifer Doggett and John Menadue. The case for government funding of healthcare.
In our joint submission to the Senate Inquiry into the Abbott Government’s Commission of Audit, we drew attention to the fact that by international comparison, Australia is a low-taxed country. Furthermore, the trend in Commonwealth expenditures has been downwards since the mid-1980s. Our full submission can be found on my website (click above). In that Continue reading »
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Martin Laverty. Poverty and poor health go together.
In 2008, the World Health Organisation provided an action plan to Australia and other countries to tackle the health disparity between rich and poor which sees an Australian in the lowest group of wealth-holders live with up to three times the amount of chronic illness of a person in the highest wealth-holding group. One year Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Privatising Medibank Pte – who cares?
This is a repost from 28 November 2013. My own view is that all the private health insurance companies, including Medibank Pte are parasitical and undermine Medicare. The only important political issue in my mind is whether the policy holders who have contributed over decades to Medibank Pte should receive appropriate recompense rather than Continue reading »
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Fran Baum & Paul Laris. Beware of the crocodiles, they will keep you out of the garden!
We interviewed 20 former Australian Federal and State and Territory health ministers about the extent to which they were able to focus on promoting health, health equity and social determinants of health during their tenure. Social determinants of health are the conditions of everyday life (income, housing, food availability, employment, education) and the structural factors Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Cutting waste and costs in health.
Last night on lateline, the Minister for Health Peter Dutton called for a public debate on health reform. I therefore have taken the liberty of reposting a blog of February 3 on ‘Cutting waste and costs in health’. The Minister for Health, Peter Dutton, has said that we must reduce waste and reduce costs in Continue reading »
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