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New Medicare proposal?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Dry Rot
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Originally posted by Dry Rot

All I do know is that our current health system isn't working.
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you can blame smokers for that.

In 1998, more than 142,500 Australians were hospitalised due to smoking-related illness.

More than 940,000 hospital patient days each year are occupied by people with diseases caused by smoking.

Smoking causes one quarter of cases of low birth-weight infants, placing a heavy burden on neonatal services.

The social costs of smoking were conservatively estimated to be as high as $12.7bn a year, as long ago as 1992. And who pays?
 
I'm not disagreeing that the funding is welcome, but why does it have to come with strings attached?
By saying the funding is tied in with further State Government contributions, The Fed Gov is effectively blackmailing them.
I guess many funding deals are set up that way, but generally not as vocally as John Howard's announcement yesterday. He seemed to take great delight in saying "if this funding doesn't come through, iots the fault of the SG's".
I guess that's a legacy of all the SG's being Labor and the Fed Gov being Liberal.
 
Re: Re: New Medicare proposal?

Originally posted by nicko18
you can blame smokers for that.

In 1998, more than 142,500 Australians were hospitalised due to smoking-related illness.

More than 940,000 hospital patient days each year are occupied by people with diseases caused by smoking.

Smoking causes one quarter of cases of low birth-weight infants, placing a heavy burden on neonatal services.

The social costs of smoking were conservatively estimated to be as high as $12.7bn a year, as long ago as 1992. And who pays?
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Did your highly publicised source also show the comparison of these highly believable figures to smokes tax / levy revenue?
 

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Re: Re: Re: New Medicare proposal?

Originally posted by Mobbenfuhrer
Did your highly publicised source also show the comparison of these highly believable figures to smokes tax / levy revenue?
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Good point.

Perhaps I have mislead posters - I was more musing about proposed Medicare co-payments and abolition of bulk billing with this thread.
 
A couple of us mentioned the Medicare issue on another thread (the 'pick you preferred leader #2' thread, I think).

I have concerns that the Medicare system might be dismantled altogether, but apart from that, I don't know a lot about the issue.
 
The Medicare rebate (currently 25.05 for a std cons item 23) will rise $3 for pensioners/HCC holders, which is the "incentive" for GPs to bulk bill. Everyone else will be charged a co-payment or alternatively an upfront fee (current AMA rate is $43 for item 23) which people can claim most of back through Medicare. My stepdad who is a GP was saying that it effectively means he's going to have to charge his non-concession patients a co-payment now of probably $5- to bulk bill pensioners etc and get more from them than non-pensioners (ie those who can more likely afford it) doesn't add up. He thinks most people will be ok to pay the $5 on top of the bulk-bill rate, because $5 is not much money for *most* people, but to charge them an upfront fee of $43 or whatever and then make them go off to Medicare to claim it back will turn them off coming to the doctor, plus it's a lot of money for more people than $5 is. From the Health Insurance Commission end it's going to be an administrative nightmare, because at the moment there's no way to tell from the HIC who has pensions or HCCs, these will all have to be cross-referenced so they know who has to pay what, if anything...
 
Health funding is not an easy issue because life expectancy is increasing and so are drugs and machines in health. So extra funds need to come from somewhere.

The $40,000 figure surprises me though. I think $60,000 would be more apropriate. What concerns me is that families on say $42,000 will find the extra cost of a visit uncomfortable and decide not to make the visit to the doctor.
 
Originally posted by Aslan
The Medicare rebate (currently 25.05 for a std cons item 23) will rise $3 for pensioners/HCC holders, which is the "incentive" for GPs to bulk bill. Everyone else will be charged a co-payment or alternatively an upfront fee (current AMA rate is $43 for item 23) which people can claim most of back through Medicare. My stepdad who is a GP was saying that it effectively means he's going to have to charge his non-concession patients a co-payment now of probably $5- to bulk bill pensioners etc and get more from them than non-pensioners (ie those who can more likely afford it) doesn't add up. He thinks most people will be ok to pay the $5 on top of the bulk-bill rate, because $5 is not much money for *most* people, but to charge them an upfront fee of $43 or whatever and then make them go off to Medicare to claim it back will turn them off coming to the doctor, plus it's a lot of money for more people than $5 is. From the Health Insurance Commission end it's going to be an administrative nightmare, because at the moment there's no way to tell from the HIC who has pensions or HCCs, these will all have to be cross-referenced so they know who has to pay what, if anything...
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I think my head just exploded. Is that covered?
 
Originally posted by Frodo
The $40,000 figure surprises me though. I think $60,000 would be more apropriate. What concerns me is that families on say $42,000 will find the extra cost of a visit uncomfortable and decide not to make the visit to the doctor.
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Which puts even more pressure on the public hospitals that are so stretched at the moment.
 
Mobbenfuhrer, I'm not exactly sure, it depends on what your local GP does now (ie. do you pay, co-pay, or get bulk-billed?). The place I work at now charges $43 (ama rate) for a std visit but bulk bills pensioners etc. Another place I worked at charged everyone regardless of any concessions they had (which i didn't agree with purely because people have HCCs/pensions for the reason they don't have much money).
If you co-pay I don't think you'll get that amount ($5 or whatever)back; if you pay upfront (eg. $30, $43, whatever your GP bills you for) you'll get the medicare rebate which is now $25.05, so if your GP charges you $30 for a std consult you'll get almost all of it back from medicare (basically works out the same as making a co-payment but with more hassle from your end as you have to go into medicare etc). Hope this all makes sense. :)

(In the above I am just talking about a standard consult, item 23. Not a longer consult eg. item 36 which is $65 ama rate and 47.60 medicare rebate, or any of the other medicare items. :) )
 
Basically I meant that I'm not the brightest :o , and everything you said went over my head ... as did you clarification! :D

I leave it to the better half to do this sort of knowledgey thingy, and she's good at it. But it always just escapes me.

Stop trying to explain it, it ain't you, its me! :)
 

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Self employed people who were on 45k to 50k a year will find a few more deductions to get under the limit and pay less tax to qualify, believe me a lot of selfemployed are around that rate......... gardening, tilers, brickies etc etc etc .......... how much tax will the government lose.............. most of these self employed have young families.......... thats why they are self employed ......... work around schooling etc................ they have a need for bulk billing with kids with runny noses etc etc etc.
 

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