The introduction of a GP co-payment could see average emergency department visits increase by between six minutes and almost three hours, new modelling shows, as more patients opt for free hospital care…
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Articles on Health policy
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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…
Trade agreements are being used to “handcuff governments” over health policy, Margaret Chan, director-general of the World Health Organisation said at its assembly. This was “disturbing” she went on, adding…
Despite government claims that the budget would be fair and all Australians would contribute to the “budget rescue job”, reality has not supported these claims. And this is bad news for health and social…
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…
In the lead-up to the budget, the story of crisis has been hammered home, but there’s more to a country than its structural deficit. So how is Australia doing overall? In this special series, ten writers…
When it comes to pharmaceuticals expenditure, the National Commission of Audit’s proposals rate highly on any policy change scale. Its two main recommendations are designed to reduce the overall cost to…
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…
The National Commission of Audit has made 86 recommendations with a focus on the federal government’s 15 biggest and fastest-growing areas of spending. Health is near the top of the list, with the Commission…
Last week, Treasurer Joe Hockey made a “case for change” in the way government spends money. His focus was largely on macro policy settings, such as pension entitlements, including access to schemes such…
A shortage of qualified nursing staff and rising health costs have led to an increase in the employment of unregulated nursing workers. In 2012, the average weekly salary for full-time nursing professionals…
The former Labor government’s GP Super Clinics Program has come in for a bashing. The Coalition has derided it as “a total waste of money” and News Corp has dubbed it a “dangerous health care experiment…
Like a movie zombie, a policy idea that should have died has arisen from the dead and is likely to feature as a cost-savings measure in next month’s budget. The idea is simple: most GP patients should…
Employees are the public hospital system’s most valuable resource, and its biggest cost. Wages account for nearly 70% of recurrent hospital spending. To keep hospital care affordable in a time of rising…
In the lead-up to the May budget, the seemingly inexorable rise in health spending has unleashed a “sustainability panic”: rhetoric that health system costs are out of control and drastic measures are…
In the lead-up to the budget on May 13, the Tony Abbott government is looking for ways to make the health dollar go further. In 2011-12 the federal government spent A$14.4 billion on public and private…
The proposed sale of Medibank Private is not popular, but as I wrote last year, and as Finance Minister Mathias Cormann points out, it’s hard to find public policy grounds to justify ongoing public ownership…
Ahead of the May budget, health minister Peter Dutton has said he wants to start “a national conversation about modernising and strengthening Medicare”. A national conversation would be welcome, but is…
The polls this week suggest half of Australians think the Abbott government should reduce the cost of Medicare. My solution? Claw back some of the A$9 billion the government pays to private hospitals…
It seems that almost every politician, health economist, policy expert and health-care worker has a different take on the state of the nation’s health system and ways to make it more sustainable. But notably…
Top contributors
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Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne
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Program Director, Health and Aged Care, Grattan Institute
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Professor, Public Service Research, UNSW Sydney
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Professor of Health Economics, Monash University
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Jim Gillespie is a Friend of The Conversation.
Associate Professor in Health Policy, Menzies Centre for Health Policy & Sydney School of Public Health, University of Sydney
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Reader in Health Economics, Centre for Health Economics, University of York
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Lecturer, Public Sector Finance, University of Canberra
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Emeritus Professor, Menzies Centre for Health Policy, University of Sydney
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Adjunct Associate Professor, Menzies Centre for Health Policy, University of Sydney
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Senior Policy Adviser, National Rural Health Alliance; Adjunct Lecturer, University of Sydney
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Professor of Health Economics and Director, Centre for Health Economics Research and Evaluation, University of Technology Sydney
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Health economist, University of Sydney
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Professor and Director, Macquarie University Centre for the Health Economy, Macquarie University
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Professor, Centre for Health Policy, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne
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Associate, Grattan Institute
