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11th Nov 2015
Punishing the poor
Published in the Age on Wednesday, November 11, 2015
While the federal government considers attacking nicotine addicts with less access to private healthcare and forcing them on to the underresourced public system, the opposition considers attacking the hip pockets of such addicts to fund education.
6th Nov 2015
Two-tier health system
Published in the Age on Friday, November 6, 2015
The cuts to public hospital funding were brought in by Joe Hockey’s first budget (“Health cuts equal to closing two hospitals”, 5/11). They are Tony Abbott’s legacy. The purpose was to pressure states into supporting a rise in the GST and to further erode public confidence in public hospitals. This in turn leads to increased reliance on private hospitals.
28th Sep 2015
Exorbitant drug prices
Published in the Age on Monday, September 28, 2015
Reports of excessive prices for new life-saving treatments for patients with hepatitis C should not be news (“Life imitates art in drug buyers’ club”, 26/9).
26th Sep 2015
A dangerous deal
Published in the Age on Saturday, September 26, 2015
The Turing Pharmaceuticals case, in which a venture capitalist has bought rights to an old but important drug and massively increased its price (World, 24/9), is an excellent illustration of what awaits us with the US free trade agreement. Pyrimethamine was developed years ago and is cheap to produce. It is a critically important drug for HIV sufferers and those suffering toxoplasmosis, most of whom are unable to afford the bloated price which will be charged.
8th Jun 2015
Child abuse in detention centres
Published in The Age on Monday, June 8, 2015
(underlined edited out by Age)
What has Australia become? An 11 year old boy breaks his arm and despite being under the care of our government as a refugee on Nauru, he receives inadequate care and is faced with a lifetime of deformity and limited function of his arm. Both the Royal Australian Colleges of Psychiatrists and of Physicians finds that detention of children is harmful to their mental and developmental health and yet we hear of a 5 month old child of asylum seekers sent from Melbourne to Nauru (Age 6/6).
16th Mar 2015
Privatisation: the real agenda
Published in Age on Monday, March 16, 2015
The public hospital funding crisis needs to be understood as part of a plan to privatise the health system and leave the public health system as an inadequate safety net for the poor (“$57b health shortfall fears”, 14/1). The main reason private health insurance cover has increased since 1996 from 31 to 46 per cent is fear of having to wait for care in public hospitals. High premiums haven’t stopped that increase because fear is such a wonderful political tool.
6th Mar 2015
Medicare levy bad way to pay for health
Published in Age on Friday, March 6, 2015
Whilst the suggestion that the Medicare levy should be increased to fund more spending on Medicare is better than charging co-payments it still hits low income workers more than the rich (Increase the levy but don’t mess with Medicare”, Editorial 5/3). Whilst is progressive in the sense that the more one earns, the more one pays, it remains a flat percentage of income. That is regressive. Two percent of $300,000 means much less than 2% of $30,000 because of the enormous discretionary income for someone on $300,000. That’s why we have tax brackets, to make income tax more progressive.
20th Feb 2015
Obsessed with price signals
Published in The Age on Friday, February 20, 2015
The GP co-payment of $20 has been abandoned. The Health Minister says however, that she would be “persistent and persevering” in achieving the government’s plan to set a price signal for GP visits. Price signals are the Abbott Government’s obsession. They are designed to stop lower income Australians from seeing GPs whilst leaving the rich unaffected by what to them is a small co-payment.