I have an op-ed at The Drum talking about the axing of the private health insurance rebate last week.
Public health systems are likely to be quite expensive. Not just in monetary terms. Money can be saved by having long waiting times for treatment. Economists can put a monetary value on pain and suffering, but that figure never turns up in a budget. So public health incurs a cost to the public purse, and imposes pain and suffering on patients who have to wait for treatment.
…
On the assumption the private health insurance rebate was a sharing arrangement, the means test is actually quite regressive. Everyone experiences an increase in the monetary cost of public health, those who remain experience an increase in the cost of private insurance, everyone else experiences an increase in pain and suffering while waiting for public health care. The drop-out rate, that the government hopes will be low, will determine how regressive the policy is, not whether it is or is not regressive.If the objective of a public health system is to minimise the incidence of health related pain and suffering, this policy is unlikely to be good policy. If on the other hand the objective is to minimise the incidence of private health care and democratise pain and suffering in waiting lists, it is more likely to be good policy.
At the moment there are zero comments.
No comments = ignoring an inconvenient truth perhaps.
Brett
22 Feb 12 at 4:04 pm
the inevitable IPA comment comes in
jtfsoon
22 Feb 12 at 4:19 pm
I posted something like this on The Drum
Person A earning $50,000 pays about $8,600 in tax. Person B earning $250,000 pays about $91,000 in tax.
The federal budget is about $360B which equates to about $15,000 per Australian.
There is no possible way that Person A subsidises Person B through their tax. In fact, Person B subsidises Person A nearly dollar for dollar.
Chistery
22 Feb 12 at 4:23 pm
It is all crazy circular arguements and there should not be any rebate on insurance and it should not be effectively compulsory due to medicare levy surcharge this is straight out corporate welfare. Healthcare and education should be seen as universal services offered to the public and if any subsidy is to be given as someone is not using the public service thereby saving the government money then the government can pay a set percentage of what it would cost them. Being involved in insurance is not really paying for healthcare as it would be expected the insurance company is there to make money not offer a public service. Public hospitals could also offer private services or queue jumping for elective surgery to save the system money and have more funding.
kelly liddle
22 Feb 12 at 4:29 pm
Give them a break, Sinclair. It’s a lengthy piece with big words of more than one syllable.
Gab
22 Feb 12 at 4:35 pm
The surcharge should be scrapped and a Medicare copayment should be introduced to bring some actual bloody pricing into decisions to go to the doctor
jtfsoon
22 Feb 12 at 4:37 pm
The MLS ought to rebated against private cover.
.
22 Feb 12 at 4:44 pm
A beautiful set of numbers, Chistery. You should post them again and agian and again on as many blogs as you can lay your hands on.
johno
22 Feb 12 at 4:53 pm
Soon
“Medicare copayment should be introduced to bring some actual bloody pricing into decisions to go to the doctor”
Tend to agree but the price should be very low like $10 for standard visit or something because you want people not to think too much about going to see a doctor especially if they have contagious diseases and the spread of them will cost more.
kelly liddle
22 Feb 12 at 4:59 pm
Kelly, if you mean the common cold there is no cure for this other than bed rest. For stuff which is more serious I doubt pricing will put people off.
jtfsoon
22 Feb 12 at 5:04 pm
I have ebola but refuse to see a Doctor until the costs are lowered.
Infidel Tiger
22 Feb 12 at 5:13 pm
IT
If you have Ebola you are a goner and no doctor will see you only people in suits to dispose of your body. Thats why if you have ever declared you are sick on a plane entering Australia as I did once around the swine flu time, those suited people came on and must have looked scarey for the other passengers and one of them did tell me in the terminal if it was Ebola or something like that they would just lock the plane.
kelly liddle
22 Feb 12 at 5:22 pm
There needs to be a cost Kelly to see the doctor to clear the dozens of patients who show up because they perceive it has no cost.
A number of family members are GP’s and they only work in clinics with additional charges so they don’t have to see the time wasters, most despicable are the meth heads and other who bounce from clinic to clinic to get prescriptions to sell on…
Token
22 Feb 12 at 6:07 pm
some good points from the non-horror writer Stephen King
http://economics.com.au/?p=8361
jtfsoon
23 Feb 12 at 1:32 pm