Medicare to be killed off by the Corporate Health Industry

Vanguard March 2014 p. 5
Max O.

(Above: Sydney rally protesting co-payments for visits to doctors and the end of bulk-billing).

As Medicare turns thirty years old, the corporate health industry is closing in to decimate and swallow it up, with a little help from the 'Audit Commission' and the Abbott Coalition government. It was established by the Hawke Labor government back in 1984 as a government insurance fund, financed partly by an income tax levy of 1.5%.

Whilst the ALP trumpets Medicare as their crowning achievement, it never was a fully universal health care scheme. It replaced Medibank, which was created by the Whitlam Labor government with a 1.35% levy and then increased to 2.5% by the Fraser Coalition government. The current scheme provides for treatment in public hospitals and 85% of GP fees, when doctors do not bulk bill their patients. Dental care is not covered by Medicare.

Corporate lobbying

The so-called Australian Centre for Health Research (ACHR) submitted to the Audit Commission the proposal that a $6 co-payment be mandatory for visits to GPs who bulk-bill. This follows in the footsteps of the Hawke Labor government which also attempted to bring in a Medicare co-payment in 1991. The move was dropped because of a widespread backlash.

The ACHR also calls for a freeze on Medicare rebates paid for basic GP visits for 4 years, which would kill off bulk-billing.

The ACHR was set up by the corporate health industry, which includes the largest health insurance companies and pharmaceutical industries. Guess who are some of the leading figures within the ACHR?

Well there's Terry Barnes, a former health adviser to Tony Abbott, who wrote the ACHR's research paper that argued for the $6 co-payment for bulk-billing GP visits. Then there's Neil Batt, ACHR's executive director and a former ALP president and deputy premier of Tasmania.

Batt philosophises: "There's nothing in the Labor tradition that says everyone, rich and poor, should get something for free. Supporting policies like this would help Labor restore its economic credibility with the electorate."

They claim over-servicing will be stopped by the co-payment which will reduce visits and therefore the cost of Medicare rebates going to doctors. This stance is reinforced by Peter Dutton, Minister for Health who whines, "It's hard to understand where we are going to find money to pay for these services."

A super profits tax on mining corporations and banks would be a good place to start collecting money!

No doubt the co-payment would reduce the number of patients visiting their GPs - such as the chronically ill, the poor and pensioners. However the reduction of early intervention via  GP visits would more than likely see a huge increase in costly hospitalisation of patients.

Take over of Australia's health care system

The co-payment and a freeze on Medicare rebates for GPs is the foot in the door for the health insurance companies to eventually take over the primary care offered by GPs. Once they have demolished bulk-billing this will open the way to start gap insurance for GP visits and specialist services. No doubt there will be open slather for health fees to then sky rocket.

Once these changes take place the health insurance industry and the big private hospitals can start running totally Australia's health system. The sacrosanct liberal notion of 'choice' will transfer from the patient/GP relationship to the health insurance companies.

They will choose the GP you will see, which hospital you can go to and so on. Eventually a corporate controlled health system will inevitably see costs escalate and patient care based on what they can afford. The rich will have high quality care because they can afford high cost health insurance and the medium to low income patients will receive cursory care, because that is all they can afford.

Another method of reducing health costs being contemplated by the Audit Commission is to privatise management of public hospitals. This recommendation comes from the Centre for Independent Studies, a right wing policy making institute. The attempt here is to profit from further lowering staffing costs and increase working hours.

What should be done away with is the 30 to 40% private health insurance rebate, which costs the government $6 billion. This is in effect money transferred from the public hospitals to bolster private hospitals and line the pockets of the health insurance companies.

In a decent society health services would be free to all. The important needs of life - health, education, housing, transport, and employment should be guaranteed as part of our rights and liberties! Under capitalism these are not considered a right but a privilege that should be paid for.

The current capitalist stagnation is requiring governments to roll back state backed health services. Capital, once more, is on the offensive against these needs of life, via the austerity policies about to be implemented by the Coalition government.

The important needs of life - health, education, housing, transport, and employment would be guaranteed by a decent society. Capitalism is only interested in providing these services as a commodity for profit.

The task of Socialism is to involve the population in the planning and distribution of these services so that they meet peoples' needs.