[Sixstrings]

I heard about this on CNN. It was actually criticism of Abbott for talking about local issues at the G20, obviously world leaders didn't go to Brisbane to talk about Australia's medicare copay.

But anyhow I found it interesting, I gather doctor visits are currently free? And Abbott wants to start a $7 copay?

Budget: $7 GP fee brings end to free doctors visits
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/13/budget-7-gp-fee-brings-end-to-free-doctors-visits

Oh man, surely aussies won't be fooled into this?

Look at the US for an example. This is the same old sh*t everywhere, it's the rich just wanting to take some back from everyone else and gain advantage.

Aussies would be wise to hold the line. First it starts with a "$7 copay" and sure that sounds reasonable right?

But $7 will become $20, then $30 and $40 and $50 and then one day you got a fifty dollar copay plus you have huge swaths of the population with no insurance or healthcare at all.

I find this interesting, to see a place that does things right and people have living wages and good free healthcare and then you get a conservative trying to convince you to change that.

[Plantagenet]

I heard about this on CNN. It was actually criticism of Abbott for talking about local issues at the G20, obviously world leaders didn't go to Brisbane to talk about Australia's medicare copay.

But anyhow I found it interesting, I gather doctor visits are currently free? And Abbott wants to start a $7 copay?

Budget: $7 GP fee brings end to free doctors visits
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/13/budget-7-gp-fee-brings-end-to-free-doctors-visits

Oh man, surely aussies won't be fooled into this?

Look at the US for an example. This is the same old sh*t everywhere, it's the rich just wanting to take some back from everyone else and gain advantage.

Aussies would be wise to hold the line. First it starts with a "$7 copay" and sure that sounds reasonable right?

But $7 will become $20, then $30 and $40 and $50 and then one day you got a fifty dollar copay plus you have huge swaths of the population with no insurance or healthcare at all.

I find this interesting, to see a place that does things right and people have living wages and good free healthcare and then you get a conservative trying to convince you to change that.

1. There is no such thing as "free healthcare." Somebody has got to pay.

2. Its not unreasonable that people getting healthcare make a minimal co-payment for their "free" healthcare.

3. Even Sweden charges patients a nominal free when they come in for their "free" healthcare.

[Shaved Monkey]

They dont have numbers in the senate to pass it.
The $7 was to go towards a Medical Research Fund not to pay for healthcare.
We already have the CSIRO doing medical research but conservative want to conservative, CSIRO is government owned and they want 1%ers making money out of it not the whole country (a bit of corporate socialism get the sick to pay for the 1% research grants.)

They will now need to take it to an election not spring their surprises once they get in power
Good luck with that latest polls have the conservatives in position to be bundled out in a landslide.

[Sixstrings]

The $7 was to go towards a Medical Research Fund not to pay for healthcare.

Oh wow that's even more insidious. A "tax" to "pay for medical research."

Politics is such a hoot, and it's a lot of fun to observe it in another country and you see the same old tricks.

"No this isn't a copay, it's a little tax to pay for this other thing that surely everyone supports" -- that's how they try to slip something in, over on people.

Call it a copay or medical research tax or call it whatever you want to but it is as sure as the sky is blue and earth is round that if and when you guys get a copay then it's all over, it will keep getting raised over time. You have to hold the line at 0. Don't even crack the door open to $3 -- notice how they come in with something that sounds so small and reasonable, $7.

Politics. It's the same old tricks, everywhere.

[vtsnowedin]

Well it never was really free health care now was it? You have just been paying for it mixed in with your other tax bills. Some one has to pay it and sure enough that someone is you.
You are right about the creeping copays and the camels nose under the tent. Hold them off as long as you can because sure as the sun rising in the east your taxes will not go down to match how much the copay went up.
Good luck!!

[Shaved Monkey]

The levy is 1% of wage whether you earn billions or nothing you get the same coverage.

[Sixstrings]

1. There is no such thing as "free healthcare." Somebody has got to pay.

True.

Maybe SG or shaved monkey can tell us who pays for it, over there. I don't know, but here's my guess:

1) Maybe they don't even tax their low income workers, but they could if they wanted to -- people making $14 an hour minimum wage are taxpayers and have money in the pocket to spend at businesses and support the economy. And they have enough to pay some taxes, for things like healthcare.

And other wages are higher in Australia, too. When you make McDonalds pay $14 then everyone is lifted up. Who suffers? The super rich, that's who. Well cry me a river.

You know RT is right about things, sometimes. Like this article:

Rich being left behind – by super-rich
http://rt.com/usa/206399-rich-one-percent-wealth-gap/

There's a new wealth gap in America. The millionaires are complaining they're being so far left behind by the billionaires.

So I don't know Plant, but I'm just guessing that Australian workers with their jobs and good wages pay taxes for the healthcare, and without knowing for sure I can make a pretty good guess I bet they tax their rich more than we do.

And the world still turns, and it all works out, and Australia is a nice place and the rich maybe would like as low taxes as they could have in America but they still live good in Australia and are happy enough.

2. Its not unreasonable that people getting healthcare make a minimal co-payment for their "free" healthcare.

The purpose of a copay is to stop people from going to the doctor. Bottom line.

And that can make a bit of sense -- if you've just got a flu, do you REALLY need to go in to the doc? Must one go in for every little thing? So the theory goes if it's free then people overuse it, so you need some kind of copay to control that.

But what happens if there's pandemic virus. Or even just plain old STD's -- in the US, people spread viruses around because they ain't got no darn healthcare. They depend on county health clinics that may or may not be there or have the funding.

Overall, for public health, it's actually not the best to try to stop people from overusing doctor visits.

Plant, we have some nightmare healthcare problems in the US and Obamacare didn't solve it and Republicans never did anything either. We have to face up to that much. There are diabetics in the South that just go without insulin. Horribly third world things like that, and then when the basic problems go untreated and they wind up in emergency / end stage care it just costs a much bigger fortune for everyone else.

It's cheaper to give a diabetic FREE -- yes, FREE -- insulin than it is to give him a bill for a leg amputation he will never pay for.

Of course healthcare isn't "free," I'm guessing Australia has done things right and has maintained a tax base of working people that make enough money to pay taxes for healthcare. And they tax their rich too.

3. Even Sweden charges patients a nominal free when they come in for their "free" healthcare.

Plant, I'm just a populist. I know I've been drifting conservative lately, but that's just on the theory that maybe conservativism in the US that works *a little bit* may be better than our kind of liberalism that doesn't work at all.

But that's the USA, and Sweden is Sweden, but Australia is a different bucket of fish.

Liberalism is working there. There's no compelling reason to fix something that ain't broke, in Australia.

I'm just saying, if I were an Australian, I'd say "heck no you can take your $7 copay and shove it somewhere because I'm not an idiot and I'm not opening the door to that and ruining the very lovely convenience of just going to the doctor and not having to worry about medical bills."

[Sixstrings]

The levy is 1% of wage whether you earn billions or nothing you get the same coverage.

Well Christ, that's not much. Just a 1% tax. (doing some back-of-napkin math here, a typical worker in the US with employer coverage pays 4 times a 1% tax, just in the premium copay alone, taken out of their paycheck every week, and the employer pays the other 50% -- or even less, and the worker paying more. And then there are office visit copays on top of that, and caps, and hassles, on and on and on.)

I'm just curious, what exactly do you have to pay for out of pocket, in the aussie system.

P.S. how does Australia tax its billionaires? Does it tax their CAPITAL gains the 1% for healthcare? That would be a lot of money, that's where all the money's at those billionaires and their capital gains.

[Sixstrings]

Well it never was really free health care now was it? You have just been paying for it mixed in with your other tax bills.

In the US, yeah we all wind up paying for it but in a rather retarded way -- the sickest get the least preventative treatment, because they cannot afford it, and they can't afford doctor visits so they are the ones filling up the ER.

But an ER is not a GP -- these patients get referred to someone but they've got no money to pay and never go to the primary care doc for followup.

All they have, quite often, is the emergency room.

Things go untreated, it gets worse, then something that could have been prevented just costs a fortune at the end of it all -- they get a million dollar bill they of course cannot pay -- and all of us with insurance wind up paying for it.

Anyhow I'm not Australian but this thread is about Australia, and the "slippery slope" truism. If you let a copay in when it's not currently needed and you've never had to pay it before, then that copay is like any other tax and will just keep creeping up. That's a sure thing.

I'm just wondering if they tax their super rich 1% on the capital gains, that would explain it all.

Also something to point out here is that as Americans WE actually fund Australia's healthcare -- because we are burdened with the massive defense spending, while Aussies and Germans get to have great universal healthcare.

And so many drugs come from the US, and it's *us* that pays the most for these drugs! And then every other country of the world cuts a cheap price for the drugs.

It really sucks. Americans, you and me, really do pay for everyone else. For their defense, for pharmaceutical development.

Americans don't quite understand that, all they know is they want to be able to buy their drugs from Canada where it's cheaper. But big pharma has it set up so that WE fund the drug development, not Canadians.

In a more fair world -- Canada and Australia and Germany would be paying more for defense, and also paying more for drugs to be on parity with what an American has to to pay.

[Shaved Monkey]

And so many drugs come from the US, and it's *us* that pays the most for these drugs! And then every other country of the world cuts a cheap price for the drugs.

It really sucks. Americans, you and me, really do pay for everyone else. For their defense, for pharmaceutical development.

Americans don't quite understand that, all they know is they want to be able to buy their drugs from Canada where it's cheaper. But big pharma has it set up so that WE fund the drug development, not Canadians.

In a more fair world -- Canada and Australia and Germany would be paying more for defense, and also paying more for drugs to be on parity with what an American has to to pay.

We have PBS (Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme) for cheap drugs most a poor person pays is $36 a year for drugs on the scheme about $5 a script until it hits that figure then free.

Although PBS subsidies are available only to Australian residents, certain foreign visitors are also eligible under Reciprocal Health Care Agreements between Australia and the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, Malta, Italy, Sweden, the Netherlands, Finland, Norway and Slovenia.

same with health insurance.


Socialism isnt as bad as the rich people have convinced most Americans it is.

[Sixstrings]

I got curious and did some googling.

Poverty level for single person in Australia, in USD weekly wage: $425
https://melbourneinstitute.com/downloads/publications/Poverty%20Lines/Poverty-lines-Australia-March-2013.pdf

Poverty level for single person in US, weekly wage: $225
http://www.irp.wisc.edu/faqs/faq1.htm

Federal minimum wage in Australia, converted to USD: $14.67 per hour
http://www.smh.com.au/national/minimum-wage-up-3-per-cent-rise-of-1870-a-week-20140604-39is5.html

Federal minimum wage in US: $7.25 per hour
http://www.dol.gov/whd/minwage/america.htm

[Shaved Monkey]

The US spends more on healthcare per capita than Australia but many US citizens still suffer under exorbitant costs.
In 2007, 62 per cent of people filing for bankruptcy cited high medical expenses.

[Sixstrings]

It should be noted that Australia can do all this, and Denmark and Germany too, because you don't have the burden of *developing* new treatments and drugs, and also having a massive military to defend everyone.

Americans are getting poorer. Atlas will have to shrug at some point.

And then Aussies and Euros and Canucks will have to pay more for their healthcare, more in drug costs to fund your own research, and money for military buildups in your own countries.

For now though it's still Pax Americana and life is good under Uncle Sam's security umbrella.

Enjoy it -- and say no to any copays, until you guys have no choice and must divert money to military spending.

[vtsnowedin]

The levy is 1% of wage whether you earn billions or nothing you get the same coverage.

I'm curious about that. How does a 1% tax raise enough to pay the bills? In the USA healthcare amounts to 17% of the whole economy so a 1% tax wouldn't scratch the surface.

[Sixstrings]

The levy is 1% of wage whether you earn billions or nothing you get the same coverage.

I'm curious about that. How does a 1% tax raise enough to pay the bills? In the USA healthcare amounts to 17% of the whole economy so a 1% tax wouldn't scratch the surface.

That's a very good question, vts.

We'll have to wait if an aussie can answer that..

But I'd guess:

1) if that 1% on the billionaires means CAPITAL gains, then that is indeed a lot of money. If you're a conservative, perhaps you should consider that really we could tax the billionaire's capital gains over here -- just count that as normal income, which we currently do not -- and it would raise a lot of money.

2) It shows you how much profit is built into our system. To be fair, you and me and every other murican are also paying the FULL cost of drug development and new treatments, which are then sold to the rest of the world, far cheaper than what we pay.

[enkidu]

Now that Australia is China's ashtray maybe the cost of health care is piling up.

$1 million lead poisoning claim heading to civil trial
Vicky Validakis
11 September, 2014


... Mount Isa mum Sharlene Body launched the legal action against Xstrata, Mount Isa City Council and the Queensland Government in 2011 after finding out her son Sidney recorded blood lead levels three times more than the recommended safe limit.

She claims the lead exposure resulted in brain damage and damage of neuropsychological functions.

There are complaints the Mount Isa mining and smelting operations caused lead to be released into the atmosphere, which could have been affected children in the vicinity.

... A scientific study appearing in the journal Environmental Pollution last year found a definitive link between mining in Mount Isa and lead contamination in local children. ...

[Shaved Monkey]

Federal government to shelve $7 GP co-payment policy

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has privately conceded defeat on his controversial budget proposal to introduce a new $7 co-payment on bulk-billed GP visits and will formally shelve the policy before the end of the year.

The decision is a recognition of the reality that it had no chance of progressing through a hostile Senate in the face of trenchant opposition from Labor, the Greens, and a majority of the crossbench.

Great news