david f,

Here's an excellent article from a lecture by Tony Judt on social democracy.....looking at the willingness of people to pay more taxes for a more comprehensive system (like they do in Scandinavian countries)

I've posted it a few times before, but it's usually relevant to questions like yours.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2009/dec/17/what-is-living-and-what-is-dead-in-social-democrac/

Poirot, a very good link, well worth a read.

Affordable health and education is not just a tax issue. Like any enterprise there is income and expense. The major issue with both systems is that the expense side is blowing out. There are not enough doctors and nurses. The oxymoron is they are paid too much and many (particularly interns) work excessive hours. There is way too much administration and bureaucracy and that costs a bomb. Health insurance 100% cost as it primary functions is a facilitator. Its prime purpose is to do the unpopular things that government find electorally difficult to do. Heath insurance companies focus is not on health but on the bottom line and shareholder dividends.

We as a country need to train more passionate indentured doctors and nurses pay them less but give them more time. We need more passionate indentured teachers but pay them less; however they get enough time off already. If people are not passionate about what they do money won’t make any difference. We need to reduce the amount of bureaucracy and administration. Communities need to be actively involved and take control of the health and education.

There are only two classes. They are the productive class and the parasite class. The productive class is self-explanatory. The parasite class is a little more complex as there are good parasites and bad parasites. For example there are probiotic bacteria and e-coli bacteria.

Our community has too much e-coli! It has infested our political, legal, health, education, business sectors, just to mention a few. E-coli bacteria are self-serving and have no interest outside self-interest and the holy dollar. They will destroy the host if they are not controlled. I believe without the good fortune of mining Australia would be Greece.

Yes we need to get rid of subsidies but we also have to have a DIY attitude and reduce parasitic activity.

I'm with you on this one Houellebecq. Only when they leave the druggies & drunken bums in the gutter where they have put themselves would you get any agreement from me. We need to stop treating these waste of space yobbos, in the hope their loss can improve the future gene pool.

I watched the Ambulance chase an old farmer, whose income, because of the drought, was less than the pension, for their charge, while they continued to pick up the no hoper bunch of drunks/druggies who had never paid.

A neighbour called for help. She was in agony with a gallstone attack, & had waited 30 minutes for a non appearing ambulance. This was her third. The hospital had sent her home previously as not sick enough.

My son & I carried her to a car & took her to hospital. The receptionist to her credit ushered us straight in to casualty when we carried her in. An hour later, with no attention, not even pain treatment, I exploded. A couple of staff were chatting, a couple were at their computers, & the rest were treating a bunch of drunken bums after a pub brawl.

Emergency staff were amazed when I asked for their names to include in my official complaint. Would you believe my neighbour suddenly got lots of attention, even from the ladies who had been too busy chatting about their holidays.

The Ambulance officer bringing in the next bloodied bum from the brawl explained my neighbour had not got an ambulance because all ambulances for miles around were at the brawl.

Yes everyone should get treatment for the simple things, if not self inflected. However when it comes to sticking hearts lungs & other spare parts, in clapped out old farts, forget it. The money is better spent elsewhere.

Us oldies have had our turn, look after the young, if they deserve it, & the oldies general health, but stop the grandiose transplant stuff on the public purse. The cost makes it simply not viable.

I wonder whether those whinging about the expense of 'too many tests' wouldn't be the first to sue the Health Dept or the doctors for not investigating their ultimately serious health complaints.

Who decides what is a 'legitimate use' for ambulance services Hasbeen?
The ambulance staff who are called to the scene?
Will they need to ask the crowd who hit who, and only take the supposedly 'innocent' injured to the hospitals?
What rubbish!

Where do we draw the line?

Houellebecq <"The place up the road is giving free flu vaccines for all. Why?"
Because it is much cheaper than treating them for influenza symptoms and complications, that's why.

Our country can afford to provide at least basic healthcare for everyone.
But I do agree that bulk billing should only be provided for health care card holders and welfare recipients.

Suse, you're right about the litigious aspect. Our society has become strongly self-entitled and the vast growth in ambulance-chasing lawyers of all types is largely to blame.

Industrial, family, professional malpractice, accident law practices are all based on finding someone to e a victim and trying to extort as much as possible, preferably arriving at an out of court settlement from which the ambulance-chaser takes his cut. Our esteemed sub-Prime Minister was one such ambulance-chaser in her earlier career, before deciding that ripping off the public generally is easier and more lucrative than dodging up spurious Associations to rip off companies.

A typical senior lawyer can charge over $500 an hour and be largely unaccountable for what was done. No wonder there's an incentive to settle!

All that doesn't change the fact that we are hugely overserviced when it comes to "heroic" medical interventions. Nor does it change the fact that some people expect others to pay for "pleasant surroundings" rather than simple good care.

When I was a boy, the school sickbay was made deliberately uninviting, because it was intended to be a place that kids didn't want to be. That meant that it didn't get used unless there was genuine need.

I reckon they had the right idea at school. Medical services are not something that should be marketed like a Westfield shopping centre, they are an essential and costly public service that should be provided as needed and that need should be both carefully assessed and reduced as much as it can be consistent with good health.