Category: Health

While Stephen Duckett’s and Kristina Nemet’s recently released Grattan Institute report “The history and purposes of private health insurance” predominantly deals with the medical part of private health insurance (PHI), many questions that are raised are of vital interest to all dental professionals and their patients. In an attempt to stimulate a public debate, we are juxtaposing the debate about Australian PHI and two recent papers published in The Lancet that feature within a series on oral health.

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Shocking scandals continue to roll through the media cycle, featuring abuse of power and influence by the addictive industries, and alleging corruption and worse. Who hasn’t read or heard about Crown Casino’s high roller operation or the ABC’s investigation into the National Alcohol Strategy (NAS), which broke on Friday 26 July.

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The first of this two article series quantified and explained out of pocket (OOP) cost in the Australian Health system.

Some areas of OOP costs are acceptable and there is no need to intervene. OOP costs for non PBS pharmaceuticals, for example, largely reflect discretionary spending on products with little proven impact on health outcomes. (more…)

There has been recent public and media focus on out of pocket (OOP) costs for Australians receiving health care, usually referred to as Gap fees. Minister Hunt recently announced his intention to establish a Website to publish doctors’ fees. This reflects and maintains the public focus on gap fees charged by doctors. This is indeed an important issue, for it may be a significant impediment to equitable access to necessary health care, a principle strongly endorsed by Australians. (more…)

When I was much younger I often dipped into Ripley’s “Believe it or not” for a laugh, amazement and even enlightenment. I had a look at their website recently as I prepared to tell you a story that would fit well into their library and found that  “Ripley’s” is alive and well, daily producing their remarkable vignettes; Frederic Baur, creator of Pringle’s chips had his ashes buried inside one of his cans, the common Swift can stay in the air for 10 months without landing, men only blink half as often as women, cats can be allergic to humans!  Well, here is a serious story that is certainly hard to believe but, regrettably, is true. (more…)

Regulatory failure has been a hot topic in Australia recently. Royal commissions into the financial and aged care sectors have revealed major regulatory failures.

The harm done by these oversights has been significant. Regulation is not just red tape. It protects the interests of those who put their faith, money, and in some cases, loved ones, into regulated institutions. (more…)

The private health insurance funds have effectively been on notice for 50 years, since the time of the moon landing.   (more…)

“Australia’s private health insurance (PHI) industry fears it is in a death spiral, and politicians need to rethink whether or to what extent taxpayers should continue to subsidise the industry” the Grattan Institute tells us as they call for a review of the purpose of PHI in Australia. The Grattan report emphasises what is already widely appreciated that, “Australians are increasingly dissatisfied with private health insurance, and policy reform is urgent.”
“Premiums are rising much faster than wages or inflation. People are dropping their cover, especially the young and the healthy. Those who are left are more likely to get sick and go to hospital, driving insurance costs up further”.However any review of PHI should start with an analysis of the failure in our efforts to have a public health system providing timely quality health care to all on the basis of need rather than financial wellbeing. PHI arrangements are symptoms of this failure. (more…)

New Medicare data, released today, has prompted a statement from Minister for Health, Greg Hunt, claiming that “nearly nine out of 10 Australians visit their GPs without paying a cent” and a media interview where he played down the impact of out-of-pocket costs on consumers, attributing any problems to a small group of specialists explaining that “the overwhelming majority of specialists do the right thing, but there are outliers.” (more…)

Australians are dissatisfied with private health insurance. Premiums are rising and consumers are dropping their cover, especially younger people, who are less likely to need health services. Those who are left are more likely to use services, driving insurance costs up further. Government subsidies for private health insurance and private medical care – currently running at more than $9 billion every year – and financial penalties to encourage people to take out private insurance are becoming less effective. The industry fears a death spiral. (more…)

There are many dimensions to the controversy around the shocking decision by cancer charity and fundraiser Dry July to partner with Australia’s biggest alcohol retailer Woolworths, but fundamentally it is unethical.

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Reducing patients’ out of pocket (OOP) costs is a major issue for the health policy agenda. But what are the chances that solutions to provide real relief for patients will emerge?

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Probably everyone who followed Donald Trump’s visit to Britain has a favorite scene of diplomatic debacle. But the moment that probably did the most to poison relations with our oldest ally — and undermine whatever chance there was for the “phenomenal” trade deal Trump claimed to be offering — was Trump’s apparent suggestion that such a deal would involve opening up Britain’s National Health Service to U.S. private companies.

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Our new government is making the elimination of youth suicide a focus of health policy under Minister Greg Hunt. However, billions of dollars of investment over the years has failed to reduce the numbers of those taking their own lives. Business as usual is not an option and radical ideas are required for treating suicidality in both in-patient and out-patient settings.

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The recent election result was a major disappointment for those interested in improving the health of the nation. The re-election of the Coalition promises an ongoing increase in support for private health insurance as the Government continues its long-term agenda of two tiering the health system. (more…)

The past week has seen a series of media articles about how some people must fund raise to cover the cost of expensive brain cancer surgery and a paper released from the Actuaries Institute, How to Make Private Health Insurance Healthier, that highlights (yet again) the needed reforms to Australia’s private and publicly funded healthcare. Together they highlight the need to reign in the free marketplace that is specialist medicine in Australia and that is costly to both Medicare and private health insurance.

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Dr Brendan Nelson, director of the Australian War Memorial, has defended the expansion of the Memorialas a way to provide a ‘therapeutic milieu’ for veterans and their families. Critics say the obscenely large amount of $498 million is needed, not for a big expansion, but to address the unmet needs of veterans’ mental health. (more…)

Two ABC documentaries – ‘Opioid America’, Foreign Correspondent, 19th March and on TV Tonight, Louis Theroux, April 2nd portrayed the cycle of addiction in damaged US communities with no hope or future. Both were in West Virginia where opioid deaths are 2 to 3 times higher than other US states. The people and their environments are forever written off. Alarm bells ring.

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Most medicines on the pharmaceutical benefits scheme (PBS) are for chronic, conditions that affect one in two Australians and include conditions such as hypertension, raised cholesterol and type II diabetes. Treatment invariably involves medications, often multiple, adding significant costs to other barriers to obtaining adequate health care, notably for the elderly with multiple health conditions. Fronting up to the pharmacy every month to pick-up ‘repeats’ and paying a co-payment (up to $6.50 for concessional patients and up to $40.30 for general patients) and a ‘dispensing fee’ (if a non-concessional patient) might seem more than necessary, especially if there is little if any interaction with the pharmacist.

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A step in the right direction for Australia’s oral health? Following the release of the Grattan Institute’s report; Filling the gap: A universal dental care scheme for Australia, we have seen the Greens announce their policy of a universal dental scheme, “Denticare” funded through Medicare, and now, on 28^th April, the Australia Labor Party announced their commitment to a targeted scheme, the Pensioner Dental Plan.   (more…)