Jeremy,

You write that by opting out of using the public health care system, people should pay less tax and get better health care.

Sure it is true that if we did not pay taxes which are suppose to pay for things like education and health, taxes would a lot less.

But then for people to be able to access health care or education it is going to be much much more expensive.

Even prior to the advent of medi-care(bank) governments funded(partly) public hospitals. Public hospitals treated both public and private patients and a significant part of a public hospitals finances was from treating private patients.

No particular health care system is perfect.

The american system is really really good, if you are wealthy and manage to stay wealthy.

Now as too TAXES, the taxation burden in this country has shifted to mainly middle income earners, those who earn high incomes are already able to reduce their taxation burden eg Kerry Packer famous quote about not pay more tax than was necessary.

Jeremy's idea had already been proposed in the 1990's along with co-payments and a few other ideas.

Australian governments Labor and Liberal are so far behind the eight ball in regards to health care in Australia, that is heading for a big melt down.

Jeremy you misquoted me!

I wrote, that private health care providers were positioning themselves to take advantage of the increased health care expenditure of the baby boomers.(this purely profit driven.)

<James H., the self-importantly titled examinator> thank you for the compliment. I have been studying health care systems since the 1990's, and what you are proposing will not solve the current problems and will perhaps even exacerbate the existing ones or even create new problems.

For example better treatment of chronic disease has increased the life expectancy of those with chronic disease, which results in increased health care costs.

Prior to 1950 if you developed renal failure you died, around 1970-80 people had to meet certain criteria to be able to be dialysed. such is the changing face of medicine.

James H. Though I doubt, you believe me, I really am not trying to be ideologically driven - nor advocate a US system - Medicare will still be there for those who choose to stay with it.

I agree with you about the unprecendented challenges we face in health because of the unprecendented effects of improved prevention and medical intervention, and the consequent lengthening of lifespans. We are going to need every health dollar into the future, and we are going to want to use every health dollar as effectively as possible to harness all the potential health benefits of modern medicine.

So why then are we content to stick with a public hospital system that takes our taxes and is better at funding bureacrats than it is at funding hospital beds?

That sounds like a cliche (and maybe it is cliched). But in NSW Health something like 20% (a conservative estimate) of employees are administrative or other. The Area Health Services are a standing joke with clinical staff - filled with people who never care for a patient and spend their time attending meetings and staring at computers. Meanwhile, there aren't enough hospital beds to admit emergency patients - hence we have chronic access block in not just NSW but in public hospitals Australia-wide. Invariably, it's frail and elderly patients who are forced to wait in ED corridors on trolleys for longer than 8 hours waiting for a free bed.

Examining this problem has convinced me that choice and competition need to play a bigger role in the health system. I think that breaking the public system's monopoly over taxpayer funded hospital care is the only way to reverse the process and try to re-allocate all the resources we waste each year to front-line services. I seriously doubt that the public system can do this, given its existing problems, and going by the long, failed history of the NHS. Do you think the Blair government got the bang of service delivery improvement it expected for pouring billions more pounds into the NHS

Jerry,
Are you saying that if I opt out to get more money in my tax and after I get sick I can then go into universal health system? The best of both worlds. Where’s the benefit for the govt (taxpayers)?
Those on Struggle Street will opt for more cash in pocket (short term perspective) but what happens when disaster hits the fan unexpectedly (as it does)?
Private insurance is more than the 2% tax credit. Or are you keeping the 30% subsidy. Fine but as I pointed out there is a gap between what is Govt recommended rate and what the health insurance covers, more money (gap insurance). More importantly who pays the difference between what is charged and the rebate? Where’s the savings to the average PAYE?

Isn’t part of the levy% calculation based on the amount received by the govt? Less $ the higher the levy must be (regardless of the % it pays for). That logically means the taxpayer has to pay more and so do the taxpayers (govt).

I was also under the mistaken belief that the govt 'bulk buy' power would get us more bang for our buck than if we sent it off to multiple private enterprises whose primary aim is to make profit (HMO’s). Without the same commercial power savings (profits) would have to be found elsewhere. The experience of HMO’s is that they have multi exclusions and limits on their coverage. Who picks up the rest?
By the way I am not ideologically bent quite the contrary.
I just think the starting premise of the CIS is somewhat biased and therfore questionable. As I have said before so is the Labor version. And I think your idea is ideologically biased to the well off.
Not wishing to be nasty but I bet you aren’t a struggler and you're a Gen X.
BTW the full name is Examinator ant.

Ok Jeremy,

for gen X & Y to save money by the reduction of taxation levels by having people opt out and pay for their health care.

For any substantial impact on public health care expenditure to be made would mean that more than fifty percent of baby boomers to opt out of the public system.

However there is no garantee that governments would return any taxation saving to the tax payer.

<

So why then are we content to stick with a public hospital system that takes our taxes and is better at funding bureacrats than it is at funding hospital beds? >

You say you don't support the american style of health care, yet here you are expressing the idea that our taxes are used to fund bureacrats which is true, in an ideal world there would be less funding for bureacrats and more funding for public hospitals.

<Examining this problem has convinced me that choice and competition need to play a bigger role in the health system. I think that breaking the public system's monopoly>

It might surprise you but in the ACT for example the numbers of private verses public hospital beds are about the same.

People tend not to notice that performance of the public hospital system had improved, the numbers of hospitals beds has been decreased, yet the number of episodes of care have increased. Many procedures that use to require lengthy hospitalisations are now short stay procedures.

It seems that you think that the private system provides better care. It doesn't, there are doctors and nurses who refuse to work in the private system.

I know of one doctor who is banned in performing procedures on public patients, yet is free to treat private patients, there are other things that I could inform you of, except I would get into severe trouble.