Published in The Australian on Sunday, April 13, 2008

The Medicare Safety Net was supposedly designed to help people in difficult financial straits afford much needed care. Cross subsidizing interstate travel to a hair restoration clinic through profits gained from the ‘safety net’ are just one more way of ripping off this crazy Government initiative which is a gold mine for doctors and health businesses. The Government’s own figures show how unfairly it is distributed across the country, with the richest electorates getting about $60 per voter per year and the poorest only about $10 per voter. There must be a better way of making health care more affordable for everyone.

Dr Tim Woodruff
President
Doctors Reform Society