The Victorian Premier, Jeff Kennett, is right to call for changes in the national health system and for the system to be looked at comprehensively, but he is wrong to suggest that Medicare should be scrapped or that the system needs a complete overhaul. Rather it needs a few adjustments.
There are two elements to Medicare which have been a godsend to Australian health care. One is universal cover. No-one in Australia goes without necessary health care for lack of money, even if they have to wait according to medical need. The second is that Medicare has kept a lid on spirally health costs. That was verified again this week with the release of national health statistics which reveal Australia spends about 8.5 per cent of GDP on health, rising less than one percentage point since Medicare was introduced 15 years ago. That is a remarkable achievement against the US figure of more than 12 per cent and a system than leaves many facing penury or deprivation because of medical costs.
Australia’s health system is not in crisis and not about to collapse. It still does a pretty good job. But it does need a few repairs. It did not need the rebate on private health insurance because that will take money from health in the form of tax deductions, rather than put money into the health system. Instead, the government should have allowed more flexible insurance arrangements, put a realistic level on Medicare, made Medicare’s hospital benefits transportable to the private sector (for both publicly and privately insured people) and allowed people to opt out of Medicare if they had private cover.