Many Australian people do not live a healthy lifestyle. It is full of junk food, cigarettes, high fat processed dinners, awful fried food, lack of exercise, coffee addiction, lack of exercise, mobile phone use linked to cancer and drinking too much alcohol.... I could go on forever.

So should we have a health care card system, where we reward people who live a healthy life? I say yes!

People would swipe their card via an electronic system at selected shops that sell healthy food (and when buying healthy items) and after a certain amount of points are raised, get free shopping vouchers, cinema tickets, restaurant vouchers, tickets to music concerts and other items depending on how much they use in points.

This could save our health system billions of dollars per year. Lets get fit and go for it!

Talk about a control freak, I suggest you worry about yourself, mind your own business, & let others get on with their own lives.

From what I see about the nutrition industry, they change their minds on how much carbohydrate & how much protein we need, & is good for us, on an almost monthly basis.

Perhaps you should wait a couple of hundred years to let the "experts" sort themselves out, before becoming dictatorial on other peoples diet.

"People would swipe their card via an electronic system at selected shops that sell healthy food (and when buying healthy items) and after a certain amount of points are raised, get free shopping vouchers, cinema tickets, restaurant vouchers" Score 100 points and its a free 'Big Mac Meal' at Maccas and a look at the doco 'Super Size Me'. 1000 points and its your very own bucket of K Fried! and a pak of Laxo's. LOL. If you think its a good idea Nathan who am I to take the piss out of you, Sorry I can't resists!

Definitely not.

My health is my own business. I don't want anyone tracking me and I shop only with cash.

An electronic lifestyle is not a healthy lifestyle.

This attitude held by the "fit" where they think they shouldn't be made financially responsible for maintaining and repairing the bodies of people who don't take care of themselves is nonsense.
Unless you live alone Nathan you have no business complaining.
I'm 47, I've never been sick or injured, never visited a doctor or a hospital or made a medicare claim, but...
I have a wife and two children who've between them racked up hundreds of doctor visits and several hospital stays as well as physiotherapy and other outpatient services.
They've used up my "share" and probably then some, medicare levy for me is somewhere in the region of $600 a year, a day and a half's wages, it's essentially a free service.

Scare stuff. Where is the evidence that coffee is harmful or that cell phone use is linked to cancer? Charges have been made, but, to the best of my knowledge, nothing has been proven. While I was typing this a kookaburra just flew against my window stunning itself. Of course I should have criss-crossed the window with tape to protect the birds from accident. I should also get the neighbours to put nappies on their dogs so they won't defecate where they shouldn't. Keep away from bootleg hooch when you're on a spree. Take good care of yourself. You belong to the state and me.

An electronic lifestyle is not a healthy lifestyle - but what people don't realise is that currently we have a "medicare card" (which is electronic).

Those who have been living a very unhealthy lifestyle for many years, can then have a terminal illness or medical matter that needs to be addressed, which costs ALL taxpayers thousands of dollars in prescription medications and/or medical treatment - or both.

How many want to pay for that? Yet we hear from so many people about increased taxes like the "GP levy"?

Prevention is better than cure - and if a "health care card" - is in place with the right setup - our country could be better off health wise.

Ok Nathan, firstly we have to determine who is and isn't living a "healthy" lifestyle. That will mean medically screening all adults in Australia, every 3 months at least to ensure they are still living healthy and thus not rorting the system. This screening will cost about 20 billion dollars over the next 20 years. Then we need a few more billion dollars in order to handle the hundreds of thousands of appeals and complaints of wrong diagnosis, as a lot of people have non lifestyle illnesses that resemble lifestyle illnesses. Also, we'll need an ombudsman (probably 3 or 4 of them, plus their large staff) to handle the complaints. Total cost? At least 25 billion dollars over 20 years.

Now, in order to pay for your idea I suggest we immediately take 10 billion dollars out of hospital beds, increase the proposed doctor co-payment to $50, make people pay the 'real' cost for medicines and charge all new medical students an upfront free of $50,000 to start their training.

So your new Health Care Card and all the associated bureaucracy and checks and balances will now be fully funded. What a great idea Nathan, I see you've really thought this through haven't you.

Dear Nathan,

<<but what people don't realise is that currently we have a "medicare card" (which is electronic).>>

I have one because it is required by law, but I would never take it with me and never disclose it. If I see a doctor or such, I refuse to give them the number and only pay in cash.

The question for me is - should our current medicare card have a simple "medical" focus or a higher focus on improving health" - or a mixture of both? When many visit a doctor it is because they are unwell or ill or for another usually medical based reason. Is this however sustainable, in terms of increasing health costs and with people potentially having to pay a GP levy?

At the present moment, there is too much focus on the medical elements of life and not the health based elements to address future medical matters. For example, I recently cooked a Brussel Sprout recipe with baby potatoes and a lemon, thyme and garlic dressing. No salt included.

A lot of people DO NOT eat Brussel Srouts at all, however when my parents tried this dish for the first time (as I cooked dinner for them) they said the dish was delicious - and easy to make.

So we need to break down the barriers re healthy eating and encourage more people to take it on. Also fresh fruit and vegetables are GST free. However when the GST came in - the sales tax on a lot of junk food went down from around 22% to 10% - making it a lot cheaper.

Definitely not healthy policy for the future - and to those advocating 'free on food' - you'll be paying for it later on - as will everyone else.

And still not one word from Nathan about the devastatingly huge cost of implementing and administering his plan. Says it all.

Surely NATHAN J. people's selection of food, whether healthy or not, is a matter of personal preference ? I agree with instructing your children the benefits of good wholesome foods, and the deleterious effect of cigarette smoking, and the risks of excessive consumption of alcohol. Other than that, I don't believe 'big brother' should in any way regulate or play any part in what we eat. Sorry ol' fella.

You’re right, david f
Be careful crossing streets,
don’t eat meats,
cut out sweets,
you’ll get a pain in a room in your rum tum.
As for ‘smart cards’...like Yuyutsu I avoid leaving an electronic footprint that would betray my purchasing secrets...no one’s spying on OLO are they?
NathanJ, the reward for eating well is health and well-being, that’s the pay-off. However, I reckon there is a case for charging higher medicare and other health insurance premiums for smokers and heavy alcohol users

In response to Right Is Right,

What you have raised in relevant - but it could include:

1. Swiping your card at a supermarket - and any fresh fruit/vegetable items and associated points go onto the card.

2. Registered fruit and vegetable shops could have the swipe card system - but not all have scanning systems - so registration would be vital to ensure the system is not abused.

3. Fresh health cooking classes (with scanners) or details put online to get benefits on your card.

4. If you are at city based food markets, like the Adelaide Central Markets: http://www.adelaidecentralmarket.com.au/ these could have a set scanning system in place, given out to healthy, fruit and vegetable shops only by the management.

My gut feel on this is that if it was introduced the prices of "healthy" products would rise to take advantage of the inflow of taxpayer money. Nathan would probably find after 6 months or so that staying healthy had got a lot more expensive than it was before the government decided it could help.

I'm also wandering how it gets managed, I'm rather fond of dried figs and some other dried fruits. Health food shops often sell them and in moderation they probably are healthy. Not so much if too many are consumed. Would I have a quota on how much of particular items I could buy in a period?

My preference is for government to stay out of peoples way.

If they must interfere then work out what are the things that motivate people and put the money into that. For instance I did a number of obsticle course events last year, lots of taining motivation for those events and plenty of overweight people working hard to shed some kilos and up their fitness enough to take part. Likewise with fun runs and some of the shorter triathalons. I suspect that those sorts of events probably get far more people out exercising and changing diet than money poured into elite sport and big stadiums.

R0bert

That was a strange so called 'reply' from NathanJ to Right Is Right. NathanJ didn't address even one of the concerns raised by Right Is Right. Strange.

Right Is Right, you are right. The administration and policing costs of NathanJ's plan would cost an absolute fortune. And guess what? Australia would need to go into even further debt to pay for it. It's a dumb idea.

Lester1,

Your response on debt is bizarre - it is simply an avoidance of the topic and ignores and that our current health system is unsustainable, and nothing is done to prevent damage to the human body.

Trust me, I've been through this before when one of my parents had a severe heart attack (after years of smoking), had to visit a GP whilst this occurred, had to go a major hospital for treatment via ambulance and then stayed in that hospital (after treatment) as well. All funded by taxpayers.

This is not free. It adds to Australia's debt left to us by the Labor Party - and of course no one else.

Nothing is done to promote healthy eating of food or living - and people simply refer to freedom of choice - simple answer, but no solution.

Nathan,

I agree with your ideas generally.
However, instead of invading privacy and tracking where and what people eat and drink I think all we require is a universal Healthcare web monitor system which logs ALL visists to any health professional, any illnesses and likely causes [self inflicted or not] and also to log ALL medicines bought from chemist.
That way if a person has serious health problems which cost the system money they can be dealt out some restricted access until they grow up. We already publicly scorn drug addicts and acloholocs who often cause their own serious health problems. Why not do same with ANY glutonness self-inflicting cash drain?

Also another thing could be to monitor the number of visits to doctors and number of PBS medicines they get, so that person U who only gos GP once a year and only gets anti-biotiics on PBS occasionally will not be missing out over a person H who may go to all kinds of doctors dozens of times yearly and who may also get over hundred PBS prescriptions. Surely the user of too much should be cut back before someone never using the system?

<This could save our health system billions of dollars per year. Lets get fit and go for it!
>Posted by NathanJ, Sunday, 6 July 2014 2:50:48 PM

Sorry to inform you, but this simplistic thinking is delusional as it will not save the health system billions of dollars.

Theoretically leading health life style should improve health outcomes, but it will take decades well multiple decades for it to have any affect.

Case in point, whilst smoking rates are falling, we have yet to see the peak in smoking related illnesses as the baby boomers were encouraged to smoke, many have stopped, yet lung disease caused by smoking has yet to peak and medical management for these diseases have improved, thus increasing life expectancy. Thus increasing costs.

I should rephrase delusional to 'magical' thinking.