In the final instalment of our series, Lesley Russell asks whether Australians need private health insurance, and what a two-tiered systems means for quality, access and equity.
The Australian Medical Association (AMA) has emerged from the recent brouhaha over the Abbott government’s proposed Medicare reforms as both a winner in the protection of doctors’ incomes and an apparent…
Australia has a relatively strong health system by international standards, but it needs a makeover. To generate fresh ideas, The Conversation is profiling five international health systems that have important…
People living in remote and rural Australia already have a shorter life expectancies and higher rates of premature deaths. Last week’s federal budget will not only make that worse, it will introduce even…
Primary health care in Australia is a messy beast, with many heads and all sorts of body parts. But it’s centrally important because it plays a major role in achieving public health outcomes, such as better…
The dictionary has many words that could describe health policy in the 2013 federal election campaign – anodyne, soporific and vapid all come to mind. Australia’s health policy problems cannot afford the…
So far in this election campaign, the Coalition has provided dollar promises for worthy projects but no new health policy initiatives. The government has mentioned one policy of note – to remove family…
While independent, government-funded Medicare Locals are still in their embryonic form, opposition health spokesperson Peter Dutton has hinted that, if elected, a Coalition government would scrap the bureaucracies…
Prime Minister Julia Gillard has announced the federal election will be held in mid-September. So, what will happen to the ambitious program of health reform that the Labor government is in the process…
Opposition Health spokesman Peter Dutton has called Medicare Locals “an extra layer of bureaucracy”, and signalled the Coalition will remove them if it’s elected. His conclusion that they’re a waste of…
Health Minister Nicola Roxon announced 38 new Medicare Locals last week, bringing the total eventual number of organisations to 62. But so few of us know what they are or what they will do. For starters…
Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne
Director, Centre for Primary Health Care and Equity and Centre of Research Excellence in Obesity Management and Prevention in Primary Health Care, UNSW Sydney