"Medicare's Death Knell"
THE AMA foretells the end of bulk-billing and asks us to come up with an alternative that the Australian people support. The problem is, Australians overwhelmingly support Medicare and bulk-billing. Only the AMA and the Liberals see a problem with it.
The challenge is not to come up with a new system, but to get government to fund it properly – and the money spent subsidising private health insurance would go a long way to providing sustainable Medicare rebates (instead of shoring-up insurance company profits). The "crisis" in bulk-billing has been created by under funding – there is little wrong with the system itself.
Scott Douglas
Published in The Australian 31.3.03
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