The kind of society we live in can be influenced through democratic processes. In late 2001, Australians have the opportunity to have a say in a Federal election.

If we decide that governance be determined by a market system, it can be expected that winners and losers will be produced. The market may be entirely reasonable in determining the cost of buildings and chairs, and the market’s machinations may result in the best price for all concerned. However, in areas such as the provision of health care and education, the market has been shown to produce inequalities and inefficiencies. The market will be expected to say that a person who does not pay for their health care can expect none and that someone with unlimited funds can buy unlimited health care. The market will say that a person who does not pay for the education of their children can expect no education for them whereas someone with the money can have private individual tutors from preschool onwards.

When a section of the population gets no health care however, an infectious disease like tuberculosis can become epidemic for the whole population. When a section of the population gets no education this may pose problems for the whole population too, for instance from the resulting unemployment, early pregnancy and drug use.

The health care of a population is greater than the sum of the health care needs of each individual in a society. It has long been recognised that a population based immunisation program is clearly the province of central government. Historically the market failed to deliver anything by way of prevention when polio was crippling children in Australia in the 1940s. Government programs to prevent polio, diphtheria, whooping cough, German measles, Hepatitis B, Meningococcal meningitis and measles arose because the market was incapable or uninterested in dealing with these population problems. We have witnessed market failure on a spectacular scale in the last decade in many areas. There is no guarantee that market failure will not happen again if the health care of the nation is placed into the market’s hands.

Australians are faced with choices at the next Federal election. Political parties will present a range of policy options in the field of health care. In this issue of the journal, we present ten clear and succinct fact sheets which give a concise overview of the health system in Australia. These sheets are a distillation of the work of many people involved in health care in Australia for the last three decades. We hope that readers will take time to digest the information and analyse it in relation to policy statements of the various political parties.

This edition also contains individual contributions from doctors working in the health care system. Regular features from newspapers and journals from home and abroad are included as usual.

The DRS calls on every Australian to consider the points raised and demand a guarantee from their politicians that health care in this country will not be sacrificed to simplistic mercantile objectives. This is a clarion call for grass roots protest from all Australians. Those political parties that want to maintain Medicare in a real way deserve our first preference vote. Those which fail to do so should receive our lowest preference.

Health care is a critical political issue in Australia today. It is up to the Australian people to make political parties aware that they want to live in a civilized country where access to health care is a right and not something available only to those with the cash.

Enjoy.

Theo van Lieshout for the editorial committee

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