Private Health Insurance Rebate: Billions Wasted Annually: We Can Do Better
According to an Essential Poll* conducted 6 weeks ago, 48% of Australians think the private health insurance (PHI) rebate should be abolished and the funds directed to decent dental care which would strengthen and broaden Medicare. Dr Tim Woodruff, president, Doctors Reform Society asks “Why do we have to advise our patients on low/middle incomes who are headed for a hip replacement that they have a choice? If they want the surgery when they need it they can devote 25% of their income to PHI and get the surgery done within months, but still often face crippling out of pocket costs. Or they can wait in pain for one to two years on a public hospital waiting hobbling around on narcotic analgesics. What a choice!
We strongly support the establishment of a Productivity Commission review into this wasteful, inequitable product which favours the rich and the profit driven PHI and private hospital industry and discards the poor to public hospital waiting lists. We wonder why the Coalition Government with its claimed strong economic credentials, would not support such a move. Ex-Prime Minister Tony Abbott said that ‘PHI is in our DNA’. Could it be that the results would suggest that the DNA of the Coalition needs to change so that we can move to a health system which provides care on the basis of need rather than income?
It might even make Australia more productive as people who currently can’t afford necessary health care become employable and their relatives don’t have to reduce their work hours to help them.
Dr Tim Woodruff Dr Con Costa
President Vice president
Ph 0401042619 Ph 0418400309
*http://essentialvision.com.au/?s=private+health+insurance&searchbutton=Search
http://www.facebook.com/DoctorsReformSociety