"Paying for Medicare"

Dr Clyde Scaife (13/3) is correct in his assertion that if we want Medicare we have to pay for it. But this invites the question of how should we pay for it. Should we ask the needy to pay for it with poorer health by enduring a second-class so-called safety net?

Should we ask those who are not yet desperate to pay $10, $20 or $50 a visit just to see a GP, let alone see a specialist, have an X-ray, or get prescriptions? Should we ask all those who can afford it, to pay the ever increasing, unaffordable private health insurance premiums?

Or should we look again at that wasteful, inequitable, ineffective private health insurance rebate? John Howard is spending $2.35 billion per year of taxpayers' money to support private health insurance for the minority of Australians who can afford it - a sum that is about to rise another $160 million as this year's premium rise is approved. Medicare is not welfare, it is a universal but public health insurance scheme, and the product, access to high-quality health care, should be available to all - including the wealthy, because everyone pays the premiums through their taxes.

Dr Tim Woodruff
The Age
18 March 2003

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