Australians should probably be a little less smug about our healthcare as bulk billing doctors become rarer and rarer and gaps become wider. Where do you reckon this is going, exactly?
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It’s worth worrying about. Let’s stop blindly defending a system that has been hollowed out by successive governments.
And stop comparing it to the US. It’s a bloody low bar.
Compare it to the best and work out how to make it better.
Witness ownership of Healthscope private hospitals by US giant & subsequent attempt to break contracts with Oz private health insurers in Members Health Fund Alliance by charging extra fees for hospital admissions.
Mate, I know how both systems work, i was merely saying that the decimation of Medicare will lead to a privatised shitshow like the US. We're ultimately saying the same thing and I'm not sure why you're explaining stuff to me.
Actually since Labor came in they've increased payments to GPs ( not by enough) so it has I believe allowed more to bulk bill and others to reduce charges where they don't. Voters need to contact our MPs and demand more be done
How many of our politicians use public health services? Medicare is being strangled in the hope we all get so desperate we'll turn to the private system despite the exorbitant costs.
Politicians use public hospitals when something is seriously wrong. Public hospitals are free. I'd like to see more bulk billing for GPs, but public hospitals are the core of the Australian heath system.
In the USA, if demand for hospitals exceeds supply, prices can be increased to reach equilibtium. The UK and Australia, with free services, rely on waiting lists.
My pensioner Mum was told this week that “doctors are hard to get in to see. If you want to see one, you’re going to have to pay. So, no, I won’t bulk bill you.” And we wonder why emergency departments are overcrowded.
It's already declined so much!
They are aiming for full US style two tier system. Only the wealthy get full publicly subsidised care, the poor will get SFA.
Back to the 1970s and back when there was no universal health insurance. Means test for hospital admission. If hospital determined you should pay then you paid.
And tax incentives to push people into private insurance. And virtually no public dental care. And for some reason I've never understood, ambulances not included in the public system.
Oh, the ALP & LNP have been going on about how they’re both rotten to the core with Neoliberal horseshit.
And so we see incremental destruction of the public system so that a private system can appear in its place and make profits.
I hope the Greens are paying actual attention to the US reactions
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And stop comparing it to the US. It’s a bloody low bar.
Compare it to the best and work out how to make it better.
So it didn’t start in the same place.
But decades of frozen rebates and govt underfunding means that rebates don’t match cost of service delivery.
Speak to your local politician.
It is motivated by private corporate profit interests.
Australia’s is a function of govt funding and political will.
What they have in common is they both try to blame “greedy doctors”.
In the USA, if demand for hospitals exceeds supply, prices can be increased to reach equilibtium. The UK and Australia, with free services, rely on waiting lists.
They are aiming for full US style two tier system. Only the wealthy get full publicly subsidised care, the poor will get SFA.
And so we see incremental destruction of the public system so that a private system can appear in its place and make profits.
I hope the Greens are paying actual attention to the US reactions