Agree almost completely with this article.

The only caveat is that it should be read in conjunction with this article:http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=6441

We live in a time where technology is seen as the answer to all our problems. With regard to an improved health system what is needed is more beds and medical staff from nurses to doctors to provide the medical procedures that are simply denied to many today. The high tech intervention particularly at the beginning and end of our lives is what is crippling the health budget. Spend the money on prevention and already proven procedures that can assist the greatest number of people needing medical care.

The nub of the issue is Jeremy's contention that "whenever healthcare is “free” (or nearly so) at point-of-service, this will encourage over-use, over-servicing, and waste of health dollars." So, has Jeremy got any facts to back up his ideology? Any stats? Analaysis of any data at all?

Firstly, over-servicing is at least as much (or more) a supply side issue. According to this report http://www.aihw.gov.au/publications/health/mwsda/mwsda.pdf "medical workforce supply well in excess of need [leads to] the costs of servicing above levels where it is likely that improvements in health status are effected [and] poorer health outcomes in some fields of over-servicing."

Secondly, where is the evidence that competition leads to less over-servicing? According to Jeremy "Consumers would then have an incentive to “shop around” and avoid unnecessary visits to the doctor." I can only quote Chief Justice Murray Gleeson, who said "How is competition likely to prevent over servicing? How can patients, as consumers, make a judgment as to their need for diagnostic services?" http://www.lawlink.nsw.gov.au/lawlink/supreme_court/ll_sc.nsf/pages/SCO_speech_spigelman_060899

Thirdly, where is the evidence of over-servicing? Australia's health costs are about average for the OECD http://www.kff.org/insurance/snapshot/chcm010307oth.cfm and about half those of the USA. Despite this Australia has superior health outcomes to the USA http://ideas.repec.org/p/oec/elsaaa/36-en.html

Apparently Jeremy will soon be examining "the role of preventative care in the health system and the management of public hospitals." I can hardly wait. My prognosis is that we are in for another dose of fact-free ideology.

Alma Ata is a health policy that has been round since 1978 Johnj, I think it is embarrassing that a developed nation such as Australia appears to know little about Primary Preventive Health. Perhaps it is that we have forgotten.

For generations the folk of the land be in in Australia or in the under-developed world have been working with traditional forms of preventive health and it only reflects our backwardness as we evade the history that infact promoted modern health (through medicine) as a science.

I think we need to put our feet back firmly on the ground and get real about "health reform". All I can see is everyone is getting displaced through the election drive. The doctors, the nurses, all the Allied helpers and most seriously the comsumers.

As a nation I believe we need to be a little more conversant with the issue if we are to cut through the foolish discourse and nonsense, which is dividing our nation.

Dare to Care. Rural health, Indigenous Health, Mental Health, the meaning of Civic Well Being and Health are all options that need to appear on the agenda and would help to solve many of the problems we abuse through a lack of memory or substance.

http://www.miacat.com
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The recent miscarriage at the emergency department of Sydney’s Royal North Shore Hospital (RNSH)has brought to light 'the dangerous conditions in a hospital'?
Dr Tony Joseph, speaking on local radio the miscarriage incident was the result of a “dangerous,” overstretched system. He said the entire public hospital system was “grossly underfunded from the point of view of not enough inpatient beds ... overcrowded emergency departments and not enough trained frontline staff”.NSW Nurses Association Judith Kiejda said wards at RNSH were severely understaffed. “We have some shifts there run without registered nurses—that’s illegal." Whilst the miscarriage was “awful,” it was not unusual, she said.
Occasionally, just now and then, we get to see just the tip of the iceberg, just a glimmer of what is really happening. The agenda is still out of focus for many, and that is, 'running down public hospitals in order to push patients into paying dearly through the privatization process - private health care: As well as, paying for health care through high taxes, that in time, will increase!

What is it about medicare that makes it work so well? That it is universal. And what is it that the right wing ideologues advocate as the first step to dismantling medicare? Allow people to opt out. As soon as medicare loses its universality that will be the end. It will then become the "safety net" for low income and unemployed and will be ripe for its emaciation and eventual dissolution.
This is ideology in the name of rational health policy. One need only look to where the writer comes from (CIS) to understand that this proposal is ideologically driven and has nothing to do with health policy and everything to do with free market ideology.