The main failings of the health system stem from it trying to be all things to all people. Trying to do more and more on the same budget simply means doing all of it badly.

The health care system should focus on basics first. The zero sum game should be to do what really makes a difference and do it well. The funding of 25% of taxes for health care should be capped to prevent resentment building, and the budget based on the procedures that yeild the best results.

I heard a doctor describing a new treatement for terminally ill patients that could extend life for about $50 000 per patient year. In his opinion this was good value for medicare. If you are that patient maybe, but for the many patients who have to forgo basic medical procedures or end up miscarrying in a toilet, this is probably not the case.

I firmly believe in universal health care, but with many new expensive procedures now coming available, the health system needs to make some tough choices.

If we can't afford health; What is the point?

Is it better to spend
60 million on an empty "Detention Centre" on Christmas Island?
10 billion on Spanish Ships?
60 million Gift to Chevron Mobile?
50 billion for Pollies pension fund(run by an o/s company - public servants already have one super fund how many more do they need?)

How much does it cost us to treat mental illness in jails?

How much does it cost us for such poor Dental health?

Tired of politicians never listening to a word you have to say?

The Australian Government is thinking about setting up a 'blog' to let the public have their say on public policy.

Have your say on what shape it should take here

www.openforum.com.au/Survey

Yes, it's for real.

Well Michael in Adelaide,why don't you go and live in Cuba?

Maybe the author is right.

Maybe we should just scrap the whole thing and let everybody fend for themselves - a form of natural selection where the weakest and poorest would eventually become extinct, leaving the rich and healthy to inherit the world.

The problem with that may be that the poor are needed to actually create the wealth for the already-wealthy.

A two-tier health system may be a solution - but then again, we already have one of those!

Maybe access to basic medical assistance is just a basic tenet of civilisation?

This is just too hard. I'm so glad we have some economic rationalists to make all these decisions for us.

Market Forces, unrestrained, contrary, if not highly unreasonable set political, will end up costing citizens their value resource benefits, given the price government has to pay for basic services in Medicare.

ALERT: I believe the 2013 Election is going to be dark-hued and somber if we don't balance the need to build community infrastructure, through a platform of sustainble "common-sense", which is technically basic to health economic's.

Our services are running like a household on fastfood. Borrowed time (inflated) and CRISIS. The Howard Government thinks it can just buy what it has not planned for. Then it say's (rural people) who are feeling the pinch and,... who have little access to services, "you should just move to the city"!.

Sure we have arguement for beds, diverse staffing needs, maturnity services, age-care and other needs such as primary health. But what about the WASTAGES of FUNDS embedded in the administration of this super-scientific medical framework?

EXAMPLE OF A BASIC CASE STUDY:

ie: A subsidised VITAMIN B pak made up of 4 doses costs $3.50 (for the whole pak?).

To administer one dose (per injection) it costs around $54.00 per visit, as this is what a private practice can charge, through bulk billing, to administer one of the satchels, from the pak.

IS THIS NOT A INFLATED COST and RIP-OFF?

Is this not highly UNCONSCIONABLE.

The total cost of the (3.50 subsidised Vitamin B pak), which takes less than 2 minutes to inject per time, for a consumer, costs the tax payer $216.00 total plus the susidy, once the charges by a practitioner in a private practice is properly added.

For decades we had been told to "TIGHTEN OUR BELTS". No money for services and the rest.

I believe the books are fudged with spurious statisitcs and costs that protect a pseudo based set of economic policies.

A nation hiding the "risk factors" and stacking it with the "invisibles" is a decieved nation.

Fairness through the task of good economics has been under-mined in many industries, and is dividing the productivity of our future.

http://www.miacat.com
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