Ideas@TheCentre
More Government Means Less Healthcare
This week the headlines announced that Australia’s ‘free’ health system was in danger of being replaced with a ‘US-style’ user pay system because out of control growth in the cost of the NSW public hospital system will drain the State’s coffers. So NSW Health has come up with a new and radical plan (it is neither) to save Medicare.
When we think about the coming crisis of Medicare, we usually think of the impact of new medical technology that can do more things for more patients, especially elderly patients. But in relation to public hospitals, the crisis is now and more fundamental. Despite ever escalating government funding for the system, bills are not paid, patients are not properly fed, and there aren’t enough beds to treat emergency patients, let alone elective patients, in a timely manner.
We know who and what is to blame for the ‘hospital crisis.’ Like all government bureaucracies that are responsible for delivering public services, NSW Health and the area health services that run public hospitals are incapable, of controlling costs, increasing efficiency, or improving quality.
So the bureaucracy is now looking for a financial bail-out – using a dishonest scare about ‘US-style’ health and jokes about ‘slashing red tape’ to grease the political wheels.
NSW Health’s plan to save Medicare is for all Commonwealth and state hospital and health funding, including the money used to fund bulk-billed GP care, to be cashed out, ‘pooled,’ and distributed to regional health authorities (a.k.a. the area health services) that would be responsible for the planning and provision of all health services within a designated region.
Based on ‘reforms’ introduced in United Kingdom, this plan would transform the health system for the worst. Because it would involve the elimination of fee-for-service general practice, GP services would end up being ‘rationed,’ just like public hospital care. People who wait months now on elective surgery waiting lists would end up waiting for days and possibly weeks before they could even see a GP.
We do need to find a cure for the coming crisis of Medicare. But a plan that would give the bureaucracies that operate public hospitals without enough beds even greater control of our precious health dollars should be dismissed out of hand.
Dr Jeremy Sammut is a Research Fellow in the CIS Health and Ageing Program.
