I think a very good piece but, there is always a but is there not, two issues are not addressed and I think the ideological stultifcation of "choice" is underavlued.
The two areas missing are I think firstly Howard's uncritical enthusiasm for all things American and secondly the ideology of market forces. Far from leading to cheaper service it leads as you point out to more expensive (public v private hospitals) but also to greater emphasis on income levels and less on "the Public Good".
Thus fees for service rise partly due to this as well as newer technology. A thing called public good is replaced by people choice shown by market demand.

Excellent article, if only it was a labour party policy speech, we might have a reason to vote for them.

It is read their web site. The Libs have made no secret of their wishes why is it coming as a surprise. People are very short sighted, things are going let's have a party rather then prepare for the bad.

Only the wealthy deserve to live anyway, if ordinary people die, it will raise the average weekly earning rate. Hang on, there will be nobody to staff service stations, fill shelves at supermarkets, dig ditches, do clerical work, wait tables etc, hang on perhaps we should re-think this policy?

The author touches briefly on preventive care. Very briefly, in fact with just two words. Compare the way most of us look after our bodies with how we look after our cars. We take the car to our mechanic for regular servicing. We wouldn't be so stupid as to wait until the car was falling to bits and then expect the mechanic to work miracles. And if, due to our gross negligence, the car became unroadworthy and that contributed to a road accident, then our insurer would not cover the repairs.

We all know the main causes of untimely ill health. Smoking, heavy drinking, poor diet, lack of exercise and obesity. But no-one wants to change their preferred lifestyle. And no-one wants to be taxed more heavily on the things which are known to be contributing to the likelihood of poor health, in order to fund our health system. Politicians must be aware of this, but it goes into the too hard basket.

Funny you should joke like that SHONGA. A conservative radio host in the US said something very similar to that...only he was serious: -

http://mediamatters.org/items/200510140006

Isn't it frightening the mindset of the people who are running this country? Apparently I too deserve to die because I can't afford private health insurance.