In the May budget, the Commonwealth government proposed a A$7 co-payment for GP services and tests done outside a hospital. After seven months of fierce criticism, the government abandoned those plans…
Responses to small price signals may be more emotional than rational, but they’re real.
AAP Image/Dave Hunt
Amid last week’s furore over the on-again, off-again Medicare co-payment proposal, Prime Minister Tony Abbott emphasised during Question Time that his government wanted “to see price signals in the system…
Diseases linked to smoking tobacco, a lack of exercise, drinking alcohol and eating unhealthily are on the rise, even though we have more information than ever before on the risks involved. All indications…
Several private health insurers are trailing schemes to prevent their members’ health deteriorating.
DIBP images
Australia’s population is in the midst of considerable demographic change, with a proportional rise in older age groups. Medical successes can now save the lives of those who would have died from illnesses…
Emil Jeyaratnam, The Conversation and Jo Adetunji, The Conversation
The health of a nation is often measured in economic terms – how much a country chooses to spend, where that money comes from, what it spends it on and how much that money translates into quality of care…
Australia’s health system is good, but it’s not perfect.
Dan Peled/AAP
Health systems in all wealthier countries face similar problems, but their solutions are widely different. That should mean we can learn from other countries. To explore these differences, this week The…
The Dutch like their health system, even though they contribute to it from their own pockets.
Bohbeh/Shuttersock
Australia has a relatively strong health system by international standards, but it needs a makeover. To generate fresh ideas, The Conversation is profiling five international health systems that have important…
In the UK, surgeries are awarded points and additional funding for keeping patients healthy.
emanueletudisco photography/Flickr
Australia has a relatively strong health system by international standards, but it needs a makeover. To generate fresh ideas, The Conversation is profiling five international health systems that have important…
Australia is just ahead on life expectancy; Singapore is ahead on infant mortality.
stockphoto mania/Shutterstock
Australia has a relatively strong health system by international standards, but it needs a makeover. To generate fresh ideas, The Conversation is profiling five international health systems that have important…
Most hospitals in Norway and Sweden are government-owned.
Ariadna De Raadt/Shutterstock
Australia has a relatively strong health system by international standards, but it needs a makeover. To generate fresh ideas, The Conversation is profiling five international health systems that have important…
Our life expectancy improvements essentially mirrored other comparable countries.
Kristo-Gothard Hunor/Shutterstock
There is an old joke about one fish asking another about the state of the water and the other answering “what’s water?” When you’re immersed in something and that is your daily experience, you are not…
Emil Jeyaratnam, The Conversation and Fron Jackson-Webb, The Conversation
Australia’s health system isn’t perfect but it performs well internationally. This infographic shows how Australia’s health expenditure, access to care and health outcomes compare with seven other OECD…
The US is the international outlier on returns on investments in health care.
Andy Dean Photography/Shutterstock
Australia has a relatively strong health system by international standards, but it needs a makeover. To generate fresh ideas, The Conversation is profiling five international health systems that have important…
Cut waste before cuttings access or quality.
Phalinn Ooi/Flickr
Health policy debate over the past few months has been held to a $7 ransom. It’s as if the Medicare co-payment has been deified as the solution to all the health system’s ills. Of course, the $7 co-payment…
Specialists in Australia earn almost twice as much as GPs.
Dave/Flickr
The opening of [eight new medical schools](](http://www.medicaldeans.org.au/wp-content/uploads/Website-Stats-2013-Table-4.pdf) in Australia in the past decade has seen a massive increase in the number…
Co-payments encourage GPs to under-service those who can’t afford to pay and over-service those who can.
AAP Image/ Lukas Coch
Treasurer Joe Hockey is struggling to sell his co-payment policy to the Senate and the Australian public – and it’s easy to see why. Charging patients $7 for GP, pathology and diagnostic services that…
The poorest households already spend more than a fifth of their disposable income on health care.
Iakov Filimonov/Shutterstock
Many poor families already pay a significant proportion of their household income on health care co-payments and will face increasing financial pressure with a proposed additional A$7 charge, according…
As the queue grows, small increases in waiting times soon turn into dramatic spikes.
Fotoluminate LLC/Shutterstock
The introduction of a GP co-payment could see average emergency department visits increase by between six minutes and almost three hours, new modelling shows, as more patients opt for free hospital care…
Life expectancy continues to rise, and years lived with disability decline.
Ozgur Coskun/Shutterstock
Australians have one the longest life expectancies in the world but are living with growing levels of lifestyle-induced chronic illness, according to the latest national health report card. The Australian…
Talking of turkey, Samoa got a bum deal.
AcrylicArtist
Trade agreements are being used to “handcuff governments” over health policy, Margaret Chan, director-general of the World Health Organisation said at its assembly. This was “disturbing” she went on, adding…
Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne