Sadly it looks like Australia will go down the American Health insurance path.

Malcolm Turnbull stated that in an ideal world all Australians would have Private Health insurance.

Kevin Rudd looks like selling off Medi-bank.

The big difference between Australia and America is that we have a large not-for-profit health care sector when compared to America and having just seen Michael Moore's Sicko, even health insurance in America was no guarantee of getting medical treatment as Health insurance companies can and do refuse to fund treatment to it's policy holders.

I cannot believe how stupid this arrangement is!
If you have a billion to spend on health you are better off spending it on hospitals, doctors, nurses, drugs and such. ie. Medical things.
Spending 1/2 of this billion on financial games will give you less Medical things and necessitate more funding. This should be very obvious to anyone who has managed a farm or small organisation, but is obviously anathema to the "profit entitlement" crowd.
Private is *not* more efficient when billions of profit are made by non-medical people.
Insurance is financial infrastructure just like banking and it needs to be treated similarly. Maximising profits will inevitably lead to situations such as the bailing out of AIG: Too big to fail, not sustainable. Private (obscene) profits, public risk and bailout.
I'm afraid Rudd has lost me completely now with Labor's current policies. They are pseudo-Liberals and will lead us deeper down the pit-trap that the USA is desperately trying to climb out of.
How stupid! End the rebates and see how long these "private" insurers last. I'd like to know the links between heal insurance leaders and politicians. These must be made public to expose what is going on.
These free market idiots have a *lot* to answer for!