Do you really think it is about health?
or
a clever way of clawing back 30% of the State's GST?
Possibly deservedly so as many did not get rid of their anti-business anti-people taxes as promised.

Is health always going to cost 30% of states GST?

Is Rudd a Federalist?
In NSW, if they keep selling everything, there will be no need of a State Government. Then we could really save some money-- about 8Mil per member for starters.

It seems to me that there is a very serious risk of the whole health
system going off the rails.
I don't think the government has the management skills to do the job.
This is a far more complicated project than any at which they have
already failed. It would be 1000s of times more complicated than
anything they have attempted so far.

If it was me that was planning it I would give some professionals a
basic scheme and leave them to it.
The basic scheme I would give them would be like this;

Each hospital to have a board of directors composed of;
The Head of medical services.
The head of nursing.
The head of administration.
The head of any major division I am unaware of.
A representative of the local government council.
Two local successful businessmen.

They would with staff prepare a budget and send it to a Federal
government dept (God help us !) who would allocate the funds to each
hospital. These funds would cover maintenance and capital expenditure
but the costs of services provided could be on the fee for service
arrangement.

Does that seem a practical way to go ?
I can't imagine the present government being able to even manage
what I have suggested.

Baz, Isn't that what Rudd is proposing??

Seeing this as a health debate seems a little misguided to me.
After all there are no health reforms involved just a rearrangement of the funding pool. If we are to be truly sceptical of the situation i would say that it is all about the government setting up the next election campaign.
I would not be surprised if their was a plan to undermine the authority of the states. Can't say i care, most states have shown an inability to run affairs with prudence and the best interests of their states. Every state has allowed their hospital systems, education and support of local government to run into disrepair in favour of developers and the need to run their massively oversized cities they have created through poor planning and foresight.
So in the end yes, the health reforms are a disaster waiting to happen. We have a federal government funding what they don't understand with incompetent state bureaucracies stuffing up the administration so the local hospital boards can take the blame of what they have no control over. Sounds perfectly governmental to me.
Can't wait to here the rubbish they are all going to promise at the next election.

The article writer would appear to be a highly educated medical specialist, yet, seems to prefer to be employed as a federal politician, a hack, a back bencher, whose daily contribution to serving his community/country is, by virtue of his employment, restricted mainly to strident support of the Liberal Party opposition criticism of the present Labor government and especially Mr Kevin Rudd.
His party leader was very recently given the opportunity during a public debate to explain the Liberal Party's future health policy, this the leader declined to publically do so. The inference derived was, the Liberal Party perhaps did not yet have a future health policy? If one at all?
This question would also apply equally to Mr Laming. It is very easy to criticise but very much harder to construct, as in his articles meanderings nothing really constructive emerges, except perhaps in his support of private health insurance where his fellow Ophthalmic Surgeon Specialists are indeed making a very lucrative living.

Michael 2
No it is not what Rudd is proposing. I see no future for the states in
running hospitals. The local area boards that Rudd is proposing seems
like just more of the region boards NSW has only a smaller area.