Despite government claims that the budget would be fair and all Australians would contribute to the “budget rescue job”, reality has not supported these claims. And this is bad news for health and social…
The budget has introduced a $7 co-payment for visits to the general practitioners.
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The Abbott government has announced a A$20 billion medical research “future fund”, to help discover what Treasurer Joe Hockey calls the “cures of the future”, paid for with money generated as a result…
We’re unlikely to solve persistent challenges to the health system, such as ensuring equitable access to well-coordinated care, with quick fixes.
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In the lead-up to the budget, the story of crisis has been hammered home, but there’s more to a country than its structural deficit. So how is Australia doing overall? In this special series, ten writers…
The Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) is the tenth largest Commonwealth Government program, now costing over $9 billion a year.
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When it comes to pharmaceuticals expenditure, the National Commission of Audit’s proposals rate highly on any policy change scale. Its two main recommendations are designed to reduce the overall cost to…
For general patients, the minimum co-payment would be A$15.
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The Commission of Audit’s proposals about GP co-payments are just that, proposals. They are not government policy, nor should they be. Some aspects of the Commission’s recommendations are good. But the…
The Commission report recommends private health insurers take on a greater role in Australia’s health system.
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The National Commission of Audit has made 86 recommendations with a focus on the federal government’s 15 biggest and fastest-growing areas of spending. Health is near the top of the list, with the Commission…
Fixing the pricing of combination therapies could save around A$120 million a year.
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Last week, Treasurer Joe Hockey made a “case for change” in the way government spends money. His focus was largely on macro policy settings, such as pension entitlements, including access to schemes such…
Replacing registered and enrolled nurses with lower-skilled workers leads to poorer patient outcomes.
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A shortage of qualified nursing staff and rising health costs have led to an increase in the employment of unregulated nursing workers. In 2012, the average weekly salary for full-time nursing professionals…
Progress on GP super clinics is mixed, but it would be a mistake to condemn the program without a closer evaluation.
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The former Labor government’s GP Super Clinics Program has come in for a bashing. The Coalition has derided it as “a total waste of money” and News Corp has dubbed it a “dangerous health care experiment…
It passes the ‘milk bar test’ but once you look behind it, big risks emerge.
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Like a movie zombie, a policy idea that should have died has arisen from the dead and is likely to feature as a cost-savings measure in next month’s budget. The idea is simple: most GP patients should…
With the right training and supervision, assistants could safely take on 15% of nurses’ workloads.
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Employees are the public hospital system’s most valuable resource, and its biggest cost. Wages account for nearly 70% of recurrent hospital spending. To keep hospital care affordable in a time of rising…
One person’s rationing may be another’s priority setting.
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In the lead-up to the May budget, the seemingly inexorable rise in health spending has unleashed a “sustainability panic”: rhetoric that health system costs are out of control and drastic measures are…
There is no publicly available, solid evidence to show that such outsourcing generates savings for governments. But it could.
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In the lead-up to the budget on May 13, the Tony Abbott government is looking for ways to make the health dollar go further. In 2011-12 the federal government spent A$14.4 billion on public and private…
Investors who remember former floats of government entities might be excited by the prospect of a Medibank Private IPO.
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The proposed sale of Medibank Private is not popular, but as I wrote last year, and as Finance Minister Mathias Cormann points out, it’s hard to find public policy grounds to justify ongoing public ownership…
The United States, which relies heavily on private health insurance, spends 18% of its GDP on health care, well above the OECD average of 9%.
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Ahead of the May budget, health minister Peter Dutton has said he wants to start “a national conversation about modernising and strengthening Medicare”. A national conversation would be welcome, but is…
‘Going private’ may speed up your time to treatment, but Medicare shouldn’t pick up the tab.
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The polls this week suggest half of Australians think the Abbott government should reduce the cost of Medicare. My solution? Claw back some of the A$9 billion the government pays to private hospitals…
Finding ways to deliver high-quality care at an affordable cost to the nation is just as important as finding cures for diseases.
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It seems that almost every politician, health economist, policy expert and health-care worker has a different take on the state of the nation’s health system and ways to make it more sustainable. But notably…
The cost of operations varies from hospital to hospital but a higher price doesn’t equal better care.
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Public hospital spending has been the single fastest-growing area of government spending over the past decade. As governments, policymakers and economists put health spending under the microscope, it’s…
Rather than looking back, we need to decide on the future foundations of Australia’s health system.
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Treasurer Joe Hockey and health minister Peter Dutton have been in overdrive this past week lowering expectations for the May budget and reminding Australians that its 30-year-old Medicare system is “unsustainable…
Government spending is already targeted toward poorer households.
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Should the rich pay more for their health care? This question has raised its ugly head again after health minister Peter Dutton announced the Coalition government was considering more user-pays options…
Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne