I have a better idea David, and just means test all public hospital admissions except say emergencies. And follow that with the removal of subsidies on health insurance. And follow that pragmatism with funding that's linked to outcomes, not this or that service provision!

It costs around half to keep an elderly person in their home, rather than "profitable" residential care!

And given the cavalier way conservative governments have outsourced aged care services? That number could soon change.

Fortunately the baby boomers and their votes are joining the ranks of retirees, and will likely resent being turned into cash cows for lazy indolent or incompetent governments, who somehow believe making NFP service providers redundant, will save money.

And yes,there are some minor savings if you outsource services to the Philippines/outer Hebrides, along with the interminable music and staffers who think we have services we don't or that $30,00.00 a year is a fortune? As indeed it would be where some of the service now originates?

In britain impoverished renters get rent assistance, as do those unfortunate enough to fall ill or have a serious injury and are still paying a mortgage?

Here, if one is one of the latter and forced into early retirement, the only assisted option is to sell what you've worked and sacrificed half your life for, and join the rent brigade.

And while that may be good for landlords and the negative gearers, not much chop for a single pensioner in Sydney, where a bedsit often costs more than a single pension! With the only option to go bush where housing is still affordable.

Albeit, the services you take for granted are almost non existent. Our only public transport is a single taxi, that only runs during daylight hours.

You ought to lift the head occasionally to see how the other half are faring.

The way to reduce hospital costs is to make sure those who like massively over privileged indifferent calloused you, can afford to pay and do! End of story!
Rhrosty.

I knew David had a particular blindness to his own arguments, but when he wrote " agents for patients like private health insurers", I nearly spat my coffee out.

If you think that private health insurers are 'agents for patients' then you are truly delusional.

The system David is advocating is very much like the US model, and experience with that particular system tells me that noone should vote for David ever again.

Most things should be user-pay in our system. 'All private' should bring the cost of health insurance down, and most people could then pay health insurance just as they do for their other possessions. Health is as important as house and car insurance.

It's unlikely to happen, so I'll continue with my private cover, even though big brother is threatening to cut the rebate and give the saving to the hospitals, which are also run by bureaucrats who will continue the rot.

"Private hospitals have repeatedly proven themselves to be overall safer, more effective and more efficient than public hospitals."
The evidence I've seen shows the opposite. If you want to argue for the privatisation of hospitals, you can not (and do not deserve to) be taken seriously when your claims are based on mere conjecture.

All that needs to happen in the health system is for the regulators to do their job. Health cost go up each year well over inflation and nobody has an explanation other then incompetence.

Our local country hospital changed its food contract from a local provider to one based 400kms away because head office wanted to centralise the contract. They even admitted ( under pressure) that the total cost of the contract and its administration would go up.

It's the job for life, no consequence public service that is to blame.

Perhaps what David is asking is unrealistic in Australia - it is indeed unrealistic to expect bureaucrats and their families to give up their comfortable jobs and be left out in the cold.

All I ask instead, is to allow individuals to opt out of the state's health system and be fully responsible for their own (and their family's) health: to have a private insurance that is truly private, hospitals that are not regulated by the state, doctors who are not of the AMA, pharmacists who have no association with a guild and other health professionals, both conventional and alternative, that are not bound by any unions and their regulations.

I won't go as far as David and I don't want any blame of becoming some US "American" (I don't like them anyway), so let nobody be deprived - let those whose conscience does not hurt continue to use my tax money for their state-sponsored health services. I hereby give them permission to do so, on condition that they stop interfering with my own life in matters of health. Fair deal?