Category: Health

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…)

Did you know the definition of high blood pressure (hypertension) in the United States was recently greatly expanded? Overnight, tens of millions of people were reclassified, leaving one in every two adults with a diagnosis of hypertension.

The move has been welcomed by some but also widely criticised, amid concerns the expanded definition may bring more harm than good to many people, from unnecessary illness labels and unneeded drugs. (more…)

Regulation in this country around the advertising of unhealthy products – alcohol, junk food and gambling – is a hodgepodge of black letter law; codes of practice; industry voluntary schemes; and policy-led arrangements variously administered by the Commonwealth, states/territories and local government across the range of broadcast, print, online, outdoor, branded merchandise and sponsorships. What a mess.

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Health policy reform is difficult. There are an abundance of powerful stakeholders whose number one priority is definitely not optimum health care for all Australians. But most Australians do share the view that our health care system (which isn’t really a system) needs improving. There are two broad aspects to optimising health. The first is equitable timely access to high quality care. The second is addressing all those factors outside the health system which affect health. These are the social determinants of health and of productivity. Healthy people are more productive. The key social determinant is income inequality, both absolute and relative. (more…)

The Thodey review has stimulated a wide variety of diagnoses of what’s wrong with the APS, but one has been missed.  Could it be that its problem is hubris? (more…)

The Opposition Leader has announced the biggest investment in Medicare for a generation, $2.3 billion to be spent eliminating the co-payments faced by those with cancer who see specialists, need diagnostic imaging and radiotherapy. It is also guaranteeing all new drugs approved by the Pharmaceutical Advisory Committee (PBAC) will be listed for subsidy. The latter means prescription costs will be a maximum of about $6 or $40 a month for pensioners and health care card holders or non card holders respectively. Cancer is scary. It is debilitating. It is life changing. It is often fatal. Furthermore, as Mr Shorten correctly pointed out “cancer makes you sick and all too often makes you poor”. Labor is to be commended for addressing this challenging issue. (more…)

This year’s Government budget documents and the Opposition’s response are budgetary in name only – they should be seen as election campaign commitments. As such, they provide a telling story about the parties’ focus on health and healthcare and the underlying political ideologies.   (more…)

In last night’s budget the Government had been proposing to deliver cheaper medicines by doubling the number of medications that could be dispensed from a single prescription  for conditions such as high blood pressure and cholesterol. Taxpayers and patients would have benefitted but true to form the Pharmacy Guild lobbied the government and Minister Hunt ran for cover. It happens time and time again with the public interest ignored. (more…)

For many years several of us in Pearls and Irritations have argued that we need an independent and professional health commission to lead an informed public discussion on health issues and recommend to the Commonwealth Government and COAG on how to improve our health system. In world terms we have a good system, but it is really unchanged since the Hawke government in 1983 introduced Medicare which was based on the Whitlam government’s Medibank of 1975.   (more…)