After dumping Mark Latham's Medicare Gold policy, under which elderly Australians would have all received free medical treatment, Labor has decided that it's a big fan of the private system, which is "playing a more important role in health", according to Opposition health spokeswoman Nicola Roxon.
The reason the private system is 'playing a more important role' in people's health is because the Howard government has effectively forced the uptake of private insurance, with the threat of a 'surcharge' on peoples' earnings for failing to buy private health insurance.
It's well documented that most Australians who earn over the threshold just buy basic hospital cover to avoid the surcharge and then continue to use the Medicare system.
The spread of private health funds in Australia is insidious. Who believes the government, either Liberal or Labor, will prevent things from getting to the point where we have a US-style system where people are denied care by their insurance funds, or denied care because they haven't met the guidelines for receiving free, taxpayer-funded healthcare?
Universal free public healthcare is one of my top 3 priorities when I'm deciding who to vote for. I'm not even going to think about preferencing, let alone voting for, a party that undermines it.
3 comments:
I have nothing against private health insurance, as long as it only means a more lavish bed, better catering, perhaps even providing cover for more frivolous operations.
Like first class flights - you get to live it up, you pay for it, probably even offseting the cost for others, and everyone reaches the destination at the same time.
But if it means Person A gets priority treatment before Person B, because he/she helped line the pockets of a multinational, I just don't see how its not prioritising human life itself.
That's it- private health insurance has been around for a long time, but people should be able to take it up at their discretion, and regardless of their circumstances be confident that a universal system of health care means that they can seek medical help, paid for by their taxes, at any time.
private health insurance is a multi-billion dollar industry that wouldn't exist without the govt. forcing people to pay taxes for public health and then forcing them to pay again for private health or face a 'surcharge'.
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