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The Forum > Article Comments > Expectations in health > Comments

Expectations in health : Comments

By Don Aitkin, published 25/8/2015

And there seems to be a wide expectation that somehow all of this should be free. We could of course legislate so that it was all free, to everyone. We would then have long queues.

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Well, your alright jack, I mean Don!
Posted by diver dan, Tuesday, 25 August 2015 8:41:13 AM
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Prior to Medibank, public hospitals were funded by the federal and state governments, privately insured patients, third party insurance and fund raising activities like fetes.

"David Himmelstein and colleagues recently contended that medical problems contribute to 54.5 percent of personal bankruptcies and threaten the solvency of solidly middle-class Americans. They propose comprehensive national health insurance as a solution. A reexamination of their data suggests that medical bills are a contributing factor in just 17 percent of personal bankruptcies"

"Have a brain tumor? The kind of insurance you have might make a difference in your survival "

Health care in Australia is not free, it is funded by the taxpayer
Posted by Wolly B, Tuesday, 25 August 2015 9:06:02 AM
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Wolly B: Prior to Medibank, public hospitals were funded by the federal and state governments, privately insured patients, third party insurance and fund raising activities like fetes.

The Casket paid for the Free Hospitals. Then they took the profits of the Caskets away from the Hospitals & gave the money to Sports. I should say Football & Racing. These two, although they say they are "amateur" are professional Sports. It's time to give the money from Gambling back to the Health Sector, in full.
Posted by Jayb, Tuesday, 25 August 2015 10:00:22 AM
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Nothing is ever free!

Someone somewhere pays for it; and wages growth, the reason for bracket creep simply responding to eternally rising costs?

So the average battler loses every which way!

Perhaps conscription as an alternative to the dole would get the indolent up off their, too tired to get up off their R soles and take a crap, bludgers up and having a go?

It might be the most distasteful job on the planet, swilling the pigs, and I've done it; but the money is not only clean but a damn sight more than the dole!

That said, we can mount an irrefutable case for real tax reform, as an entirely unavoidable stand alone expenditure tax!

Firstly, there is no bracket creep in a set and forget expenditure tax.

Foreign nationals simply can't avoid an entirely unavoidable expenditure tax.

And given it is collected via the banking fraternity, as money leaves accounts; even exchanges and remittances ,will finally pay a fair share to treasury!

Yeah sure, continued over reliance on a shrinking cadre of fewer taxpayers ain't fair, nor is the over representation by higher taxpayers!

But just changing the deck chairs on the Titanic via tax breaks for the better off, while retaining an essentially unreformed massively complicated tax system, with more holes than Swiss cheese.

Is hardly the answer, just an even larger deficit going forward as far as the eye can see!

If the total tax take is just 4% of the GNP, and the GNP is just the sum total of our combined expenditure?

[And let's not confuse the GNP, with the GDP, which are two very different kettles of fish/blatant obfuscation?]

Then a 5% unavoidable for any reason, expenditure tax, will raise more revenue!

Moreover, stop the annual bleed of at least 60 billions into tax havens, from which we get 100% of nothing!

Better we just eliminate all tax avoidance; regardless of the screams and obfuscation of the affected; for whom the world owes a living Aidan!

If there's a better more obvious less expensive way?

Let's hear it!
Rhrosty.
Posted by Rhrosty, Tuesday, 25 August 2015 10:25:55 AM
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You make several good points there Don.

It is frustrating that so many people in our society believe they are entitled to completely free health care, but yet still complain if they have to go on a waiting list for operations etc. Yet they willingly cough up the money needed for Fido to be seen at the vet!

Can they imagine how long those waiting lists would be if we didn't have private hospitals and private health insurance that some people are willing to pay for?

It is a good thing that public hospitals provide most services for free, because our society should be able to afford to pay for the health care of those unable to pay for it themselves, for whatever reason. Those on health care cards need to be cared for by the wider society.

However, what really annoys me is those people not on a health care card, or those who just don't want to pay to see a GP, feel they have a right to just wander in to our public hospital 'emergency' departments to have their non-emergency problems seen to for 'free'.
Then they have the nerve to complain about long waiting times while the ED staff rightly attend to the real emergency patients first.
Public hospitals should be reserved for those who really can't afford private health cover, and not for those who would just rather use that money on smokes, alcohol, drugs or gambling etc instead of on their own health care needs.
Posted by Suseonline, Tuesday, 25 August 2015 11:30:23 AM
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A well publicized U.S. study, by the medical fraternity, found that it costs over $70,000.00 a year to look after someone in either hospitals or nursing homes, or $40,000.00 a year to keep them comfortable at home and providing enough services to do just that!

Just because two people occupy it doesn't double the service/maintenance costs of a house, its yard, or the no longer doable for any reason, housework!

Bring back pragmatic policies!

And preventive medicine saves even more money; as does an affordable mediterranean diet!

Lots of fresh fruit vegetables and unprocessed grain, nuts and dried fruit, fish and a set of stairs to climb at least twice a week!
And just a modicum of mostly fermented (cheese and yoghurt) dairy products

Fresh fish usually entirely unaffordable at $20.00 a piece by someone living on just 25% of an average male income!

And or, paying a mortgage or the gold plated price of energy needed to cook it?

Snap frozen fresh from the farmer's field, being way more nutritious, than vegetables spending a day in the market and one more on the back of a truck; and then sitting on supermarket shelves for a week or more?

And the best reason for retaining a city encircling green belt full of little labor intensive market gardens, replete with freshly picked farmer's markets!

I mean we hit those who just can't afford to go solar with gold plated energy costs; and then make a healthy diet completely unaffordable; let alone alternative medicine like artery cleansing cheap as chips chelation therapy or hyperbaric oxygen Therapy.

Oxygen being implicated in all healing; particularly things like formerly untreatable diabetic ulcers!

We can prosper the returns for big pharma; or the health prospects of the elderly, the majority of our health budget; just not both!

And guess who has the most political clout in this particular arena; penniless pensioners living in penury, or the trillionaire drug companies, with their almost exclusive reliance on turning the elderly as managed, walking (I've got a pill for that) pharmaceutical receptacles!?
Rhrosty.
Posted by Rhrosty, Tuesday, 25 August 2015 11:56:20 AM
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Some thoughtful comments, as usual, Don.

Good healthy people costs us all.

Unhealthy people costs us more.

What should I say to the people smoking a ciggy before they go in to see the doctor?
If only the men knew how much damage smoking does to their vital equipment!
Posted by Waverley, Tuesday, 25 August 2015 12:44:10 PM
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medibank private on 1.4.15 raised its payments for my particular scheme by $8 / fortnight and my last pension rise was $4.10 . To much of that and there will be a whole lot more people waiting a hospital doors.
Posted by doog, Tuesday, 25 August 2015 1:38:48 PM
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Having paid my taxes, & having thus paid to patch up the drugos, the drunks, the self caused sports injuries, & all those unfortunate enough to have normal medical problems for years, yes I do expect to get treatment now in my dotage.

Suse I wouldn't mind waiting for an operation, or having the choice to wait or use the last of my nest egg to be treated privately, but I do think I should have at least been examined sooner than the 3 years I've been waiting for examination of my knee & hip problem. The fact that they are both probably the result of an accident when a young navy pilot really annoys me.

If I had not been paying for every one else for so long, I just may have had a bit more money put away to look after myself. It is a bit late to change the rules on the old farts now.

Personally I believe paying some bureaucrat to take my money in tax, then paying another to pay my doctors & medication bill is about the most expensive & inefficient way imaginable. However, I am just one voice so have not much choice. It would be nice if the system ran a little more efficiently.
Posted by Hasbeen, Tuesday, 25 August 2015 1:56:00 PM
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Hasbeen, I do feel for you with the knee and hip, as I too have knee problems.
I agree that 3 years wait for assessment is way too long, however, if more people who could afford to did take out private health insurance for themselves then there wouldn't be such a heavy load on the Medicare system.

I would rather save the significant amount of money my family spends on private health cover, and spend it on other luxuries, but I don't because I wouldn't like to wait on the public system treadmill for treatment.

The younger tax payers predominantly pay their health tax dollars for the benefit of the aged health care industry, as the aged in our society cost the most for health care.
Unless more younger people use the private system rather than the public one, then the next lot of aged health consumers will be waiting for much longer!
Posted by Suseonline, Tuesday, 25 August 2015 4:30:21 PM
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Ahhh.... Hospital Emergency Wards.

About 2 years ago I cut the top off my ring finger. I lost half the nail. So I went to the Hospital, it was the weekend. I arrived & there was a little boy about 2 years old with about 50mm of his scalp flapping loose & a somewhat distraught mother. They had been there for over an hour. About ten minutes after I arrived another lad arrived with a 100mm nail sticking out of his knee. We waited at the window & could see some Doctors & Nurses sitting around drinking Coffee & talking. After a half hour I kicked up a din (rang the bell)& a Nurse came to see what was up. I explained the situation & she said they were busy I said, "drinking Coffee & talking. " She said they had two patience's on Heart attack watch & were waiting for ambulances to take them to the City Hospital. I said while you are waiting would it be possible to see some of the people waiting. She said, "No, one patience at time & we will all just have to wait."

I arrived at 2pm & didn't leave until 11.30pm. I don't know what time the lad with the nail in his knee got attended to. No pain killers, No attention of any description to any of the people waiting at all. Just a cold blank waiting room. & the threat that if we complained about the lack of Service that Security would be called & we would be asked to leave.
Posted by Jayb, Tuesday, 25 August 2015 4:33:09 PM
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The nurses and doctors did the right thing with the heart attack 'patients' Jayb.

You and the others you spoke to turned up to an Emergency department, so obviously the staff had to keep close observation on the actual emergency patients rather than the cut finger or the nail in the knee people.

If that was your relative who had just had a heart attack lying in the observation area, and the nurse/doctor left them alone to go and assess a cut finger, and the relative suffered a setback and died, you would be the first to raise merry hell Jayb.
Posted by Suseonline, Tuesday, 25 August 2015 10:58:37 PM
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The bottom line is that those who are unwilling to use the Australian public health system pay the medical bills of those who do use it.

This is not necessarily a social case of the wealthy subsidising the poor (which may be justified), but includes even poorer people and poorer patients subsidising wealthier ones, even to the extent that as a result of the tax they pay they cannot afford to pay for their own healthcare.

Possible reasons for unwillingness to use the public health system include (but are not limited to):

* The moral abhorrence of taking other people's money.
(with two sub-cases: those who would not beg for other people's money at all; and those who would not accept monies that were taken from others against their will)

* Non-acceptance of the conventional Western system of medicine (as Medicare does not pay for any alternatives)

* Unwillingness to suffer in the queue.

* Trusting overseas doctors and hospitals more (or only having family-members overseas who can care for oneself when ill).

* Not wanting Big Brother to know and keep records about one's medical condition.

As a result of this government intervention, Australian doctors owe nothing to their patients, but rather serve the interests of their patron - government, and when conflict-of-interests arise, serve them instead. That is also likely to make them lazier and demand more pay for less dedication.

Public health should be reserved for those who truly cannot afford paying their own medical fees, nor even for a private health insurance. There certainly is a place for compassion, but to avoid abuse, public medical funding should be treated as a HECS-like loan, to be paid back when one earns more or out of their estate. Finally, public health for the needy should not be unfairly restricted to conventional Western medicine.
Posted by Yuyutsu, Wednesday, 26 August 2015 2:41:37 AM
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SOS: The nurses and doctors did the right thing with the heart attack 'patients' Jayb.

10 hours of just sitting around joking. You've got to be kidding. Not one nurse or Doctor came out to make any sort of assessment in that time. Cut finger? I lost 12 mm of my finger in an Electric Plane. The lad with the nail couldn't bend his knee & was in great pain as well.
Posted by Jayb, Wednesday, 26 August 2015 8:52:52 AM
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