To avoid ineffective treatments, we need a new way to identify and reduce questionable care. A new Grattan Institute report shows how to do it.
- Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne
Any health reform proposals should start by addressing public hospitals and chronic care. But successful change in these areas requires getting the state-Commonwealth funding and incentives right.
As well as being responsible for a large share of total costs, people who visit the GP more often are more likely to live in the most disadvantaged areas, and to report being in poor health.
Health Minister Sussan Ley is broadly correct on the numbers – but they are framed in a way that overstates the impression of rising health care expenditure.
The Commonwealth appears to have its health outlays more or less under control. The problem for the states, however, is dire.
Experts question where the jobs for older Australians will come from.
The Christmas-New Year silly season gave Australia three health policies. At the start of December, the policy from the 2014 budget was still on life support. But in mid-December, then-health minister…
The primary care reform debate of the last 15 months got off on the wrong foot. It was framed in terms of cutting government spending, with an overlay that consumers needed to bear the brunt of system…
At a ceremony in Townsville today, four people will graduate from James Cook University’s physician assistant program. They will be Australia’s first bachelor’s graduates in that field. This is an important…
In the May budget, the Commonwealth government proposed a A$7 co-payment for GP services and tests done outside a hospital. After seven months of fierce criticism, the government abandoned those plans…
The Abbott government has scrapped its controversial A$7 co-payment plan and replaced it with a A$5 cut to GP rebates for patients over 16 without a concession card, and other rebate changes. The revised…
Scanning through the media coverage of the major parties’ health policies one could be forgiven for thinking that hospital beds are the key to health. Sure, hospital spending dominates the health budget…
The baby boomers are growing old and in the next 25 years the number of Australians who die each year will double. People want to die comfortably at home, supported by family and friends and effective…
Despite the Commonwealth government warning the nation’s health bill is spiralling out of control, a new report shows Australia’s growth in health expenditure is the lowest since the mid-1980s. The Australian…
Health systems in all wealthier countries face similar problems, but their solutions are widely different. That should mean we can learn from other countries. To explore these differences, this week The…
There is an old joke about one fish asking another about the state of the water and the other answering “what’s water?” When you’re immersed in something and that is your daily experience, you are not…
Australia’s health system isn’t perfect but it performs well internationally. This infographic shows how Australia’s health expenditure, access to care and health outcomes compare with seven other OECD…
Health policy debate over the past few months has been held to a $7 ransom. It’s as if the Medicare co-payment has been deified as the solution to all the health system’s ills. Of course, the $7 co-payment…
Many poor families already pay a significant proportion of their household income on health care co-payments and will face increasing financial pressure with a proposed additional A$7 charge, according…
Australians have one the longest life expectancies in the world but are living with growing levels of lifestyle-induced chronic illness, according to the latest national health report card. The Australian…
Yesterday was a sorry day in the long history of health reform in Australia. The Council of Australian Governments (COAG) Reform Council issued its five year score-keeper’s report on health reform progress…
The federal budget reignited debate over federal-state relations with a decision to cut $80 billion funding for the state responsibilities of schools and hospitals over the coming years. So how can federal-state…
It was only seven years ago, but it seems like a lifetime; then-opposition leader Kevin Rudd was promising to end the “blame game” in health-care funding. Fast forward a few years, he’d received a report…
The Abbott government has announced a A$20 billion medical research “future fund”, to help discover what Treasurer Joe Hockey calls the “cures of the future”, paid for with money generated as a result…
The Commission of Audit’s proposals about GP co-payments are just that, proposals. They are not government policy, nor should they be. Some aspects of the Commission’s recommendations are good. But the…
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