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April 07, 2003
On the money
This article gets it right.
"Under the cover of the fog of war, the Howard Government is trying to drive the final nail into Medicare as a universal system of financing health care."
The neo-liberals cannot launch a full frontal assualt so they will create a two tier health scheme. Its instruments of attack are the $2 billion private health insurance for an inefficient, high cost private health industry; underfunding the public hospital system; and undermining bulk-billing by GPs by setting the scheduled fee at an unrealistically low level.
If the Howard government was genuine about maintaining Medicare in its entirety it would increase the scheduled fee on the basic GP consultation by $10, to bring it in line with what doctors now charge. It would redirect the 30 per cent private rebate to public hospitals. that wil not happen. We will see more and more public money going into subsidising the private health iindustry.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at April 7, 2003 03:37 PM