I have an op-ed at The Drum today, basically a longer version of the piece here on Monday. I was able to track down some public hospital data that shows increased spending in public hospitals over the Howard era.
It is understandable that the current government wants to differentiate itself from its predecessor. It is not clear that it should do so by out-spending the Howard government. Ironically Howard has a reputation of being somewhat hard-hearted; yet the empirical record is very different. Andrew Norton of the Centre for Independent Studies has shown that Howard government spending on issues such as Health and Education rose faster than under the previous Keating government. He has labelled Howard a conservative social democrat.
All governments like to think that increasing the amount of money thrown at problems will solve that problem. But, as we now know from the Rudd government stimulus package, the quality of spend can be more important than the quantity of spending. So too with health – my IPA colleague Julie Novak has shown that the number of back-office bureaucrats has been increasing, while the number of hospital beds per 1000 population has declined. In the spending we have had over the past fifteen years, the bang for buck has declined.
Sinkers are you oblivious to the political issues at all.
It is related to the funding being 50/50 and then changing to 40/60 in the States’s direction for funding.
it is in the budget documents but you have to burrow hard and long.
I have neither the time nor the interest to do it.
If you are going to comment on a subject then at the very least do some homework before you introduce spurious figures
Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop
10 Mar 10 at 9:12 am
As usual Homer misses the big picture or at least pretends to.
“it is in the budget documents but you have to burrow hard and long”
No imagery that would be contrary to orthodox notions of the right order of things, Homes. I feel threatened already.
jtfsoon
10 Mar 10 at 9:14 am
No Statman you clown can’t even get the right picture and then wrong statistics to produce the wrong conclusion.
Typical of Catallaxian crackpots
Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop
10 Mar 10 at 9:19 am
Homer – I have looked at the Budget papers. In 2006-07 the Howard government forecast Hospital service spend of $1,655B for this financial year. The Rudd government has spend of $1,689B for this year – down from $2,947B last year. By your logic the Rudd government hasn’t increased spend much and appears to be reducing it. But, that isn’t true and not what’s happened. The money has been relabeled as something else. The problem with the Budget papers is that they are not time consistent. The ABS try to be and the AIHW try to be too.
Sinclair Davidson
10 Mar 10 at 9:38 am
it is in the budget documents but you have to burrow hard and long.
I have neither the time nor the interest to do it.
.
So, there is proof that Sinclair is wrong, in a budget document… but it’s really hard to find… and you personally haven’t read the document in question… nor have you personally found the proof that he’s wrong. But Sinclair will find it if he goes looking, you’re quite sure of that.
Tell me if I’m missing something.
daddy dave
10 Mar 10 at 9:39 am
DD – it’s worse than that. Sinclair has looked at the data and Homer is still wrong. Another Toozing moment
Sinclair Davidson
10 Mar 10 at 9:41 am
No Sinkers there is in fact an agreement.
That is what the State Premiers are talking about.
This is bi-partisan as Colin has said the same thing ever since he has been Premier.
Perhaps if you actually compared apples with apples instead of oranges.
the Howard government did not deny they only funded 45% of Hospitals.
Yea another tooze moment except I appear to be the only person who actualy read it but a typical sinkers moment.
Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop
10 Mar 10 at 10:19 am
All I can remember was Howard and his minister trying to put me out of work – saying there were too many doctors. And -
Did he not make it hard to get MRI machines in Australia as well.
john malpas
10 Mar 10 at 11:15 am
This is interesting John. You should elaborate on this.
Semi Regular Libertarian
10 Mar 10 at 2:22 pm
John as an avid user of MRI’s machines during the Howard years I can say here right now that no, Howard did not try to make it hard to have MRI’s imported to Australia.
Take that as gospel.
JC
10 Mar 10 at 2:28 pm
I do recall some scandal involving MRIs. On the doctors thing, the federal government restricted doctors coming into Australia at one time – this started under Keating and continued under Howard. Not sure when this policy was abandoned.
Sinclair Davidson
10 Mar 10 at 2:30 pm
I thought it was the other way around. wasn’t there some scandal with outrageous subsidies for buying MRI’s? ie doctors buying them for no good reason.
daddy dave
10 Mar 10 at 3:46 pm
Something like that – some doctors allegedly had forewarning that the feds would subsidise MRIs and bought equipment in advance.
Sinclair Davidson
10 Mar 10 at 3:51 pm
The “Scan Scam” I believe.
Semi Regular Libertarian
10 Mar 10 at 3:51 pm
the allegation was the Minister at the time Michael Wooldridge told industry people to buy the MRIs now because they would cost more later.
although denied there was an unusual number ordered prior to the reduce subsidisation or equivalent
Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop
10 Mar 10 at 4:28 pm
There does seem to be this notion that cutting a billion out of the health budget would have been a bad thing. Given the current state of health it would be pleasant to open the books and find out that the government had found a billion dollars in savings and that it is now cheaper than we thought. We should focus more on the hard to measure outputs rather than the easy to measure inputs.
TerjeP (say Tay-a)
10 Mar 10 at 10:33 pm