The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > Article Comments > Medicare becoming a luxury we cannot afford > Comments

Medicare becoming a luxury we cannot afford : Comments

By Jeremy Sammut, published 5/11/2007

Taxpayer-funded health systems were created in an age when medicine was rudimentary and inexpensive, the old died relatively young, and doctors mainly saved people from misadventure rather than from the consequences of their lifestyle choices.

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. Page 4
  6. 5
  7. 6
  8. 7
  9. 8
  10. All
Leigh, I do believe you are becoming more callous in your old age. You were once nothing but a burden to your mother, but you resent it being the other way around??!! I take it that you would also want to with-hold treatment for patients younger than 70 that may or may not survive? And what about premmie babies? Its very expensive to keep them alive and its a hell of a gamble with the very early ones. Do we just let them die?

The fact is that even the coalition govt has recognised that those over 70 can still be useful, contributing members of society, by allowing super contributions up to the age of 75 (provided a work test is passed). This recognises (probably as a result of Howards age actually), that older people can still work and contribute, as well as leading healthly lives. Yes some may be sickly and a drain on health resources.

My family shows the extremes. On one side no-one has lived past 65, and the only remaining member is just 55 and has already been accepted into a nursing home. The other side, no-one has died before 65 (except from TB, and that's going back many years), and live-spans are usually over 90, and in one case 102 (and she lived on her own in Melbourne, so was relatively healthy).

Your adoption of 70 is entirely arbitrary and without merit, particularly given that it is lower than the average life expectancy.
Posted by Country Gal, Monday, 5 November 2007 11:43:03 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
What a nasty bit of work. One would respond to the content, but there isn't any.

Not only do I wish jeremy ill, I wish he gets ill in America, so he can experience firsthand the joys and efficiencies of a free-market health care system.
Posted by bushbasher, Monday, 5 November 2007 12:45:24 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
It must really stick in the maw of the CIS that publically funded healthcare always outperforms the private system.

"The U.S. health system is the most expensive in the world, but comparative analyses consistently show the United States underperforms relative to other countries on most dimensions of performance. This report, which includes information from primary care physicians about their medical practices and views of their countries' health systems, confirms the patient survey findings discussed in previous editions of Mirror, Mirror. It also includes information on health care outcomes that were featured in the U.S. health system scorecard issued by the Commonwealth Fund Commission on a High Performance Health System.

Among the six nations studied—Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States—the U.S. ranks last, as it did in the 2006 and 2004 editions of Mirror, Mirror. Most troubling, the U.S. fails to achieve better health outcomes than the other countries, and as shown in the earlier editions, the U.S. is last on dimensions of access, patient safety, efficiency, and equity. The 2007 edition includes data from the six countries and incorporates patients' and physicians' survey results on care experiences and ratings on various dimensions of care."

http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/publications_show.htm?doc_id=482678

Shame on the editors of the SMH and Online Opinion for even given space to such lunatic proposals.
Posted by Lev, Monday, 5 November 2007 12:56:41 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
The article started badly and then found its feet in the second to last paragraph:

"While the baby boomer generation is retiring on tax-free superannuation and negatively-geared property, over-taxed and debt-ridden younger taxpayers are expected to supply ageing "boomers" with health care of a far superior quality and quantity. Add in the generational wealth divide created by the housing boom, and the stage is set for real intergenerational conflict over the future of Medicare."

I think he might have 'buried the lead'.

I'm not going to go into boomer whine mode. The problem isn't health. The Feds would love it if we all went in to Private health care schemes - but that ain't going to happen. The author knows that even with an ageing population we can fund healthcare. That model has been proven. Just one years budget credit (say $14B) would fund Medicare until 2050.

The problem lies in superannuation and especially liquidity for a fair percentage of the boomers. They need to save more. The story is about savings.
Posted by Cheryl, Monday, 5 November 2007 2:13:56 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
It is true that we may not be able to continue Medicare as it currently exists but before we abandon universal cover we must try the following options:
1. Look at preventing illness. The lowest estimate of preventable illness I have seen is 30%
2. Pay GPs to keep patients well rather than treating them when they are sick
3. Properly evaluate new technologies and drugs including a long term cost benefit analysis.
4. Properly evaluate existing technologies and drugs. Many give relatively small health gains at large expense
5. Involve the public in determining the priorities for health care. An informed public, far more than health professionals, will target resources towards services that are underfunded - like mental health an indigenous health.
6. Allow better tradeoffs between various parts of the funding system, e.g. paying for counselling and exercise programs rather than say antidepressant drugs
7. Eliminate the bureaucracies in both state and commonwealth health departments that spend valuable resources watching over each other
8. Design hospital organisational structures to meet the needs of the patients, not the needs of the health professionals

Creating a more effective and efficient health system should be our first priority - there may well be enough money already to avoid making the decision to cut Medicare
Posted by John Wellness, Monday, 5 November 2007 3:46:56 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
"As you'd expect, a member of the CIS understands a complex problem in purely economic terms."

The article fails in economic reasoning also, chainsmoker. It gives no consideration to the idea that medical treatment may increase a person's economic productivity. It also assumes that the benefit per unit cost of medical care will decline. You might note that the development of a treatment for tuberculosis resulted in huge cost savings, making economically productive citizens out of invalids in the process.

It is like reading an article calling for the abolition of public schools on the basis that they will become more expensive. Education has the potential to improve a person's productivity. So does medical treatment. It has been found that people tend to overestimate the cost and underestimate the benefit of a good education.

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/rearvision/stories/2007/2077387.htm#transcript

Jeremy Sammut seems to be making similar assumptions for the provision of public health care. More an economic cretin than an economic rationalist I think.
Posted by Fester, Monday, 5 November 2007 5:36:51 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. Page 4
  6. 5
  7. 6
  8. 7
  9. 8
  10. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy