It would be a wasted opportunity if our political leaders came back again in six months without a long-term plan about how to fund and improve the system.
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Articles on Health funding
Displaying 1 - 20 of 36 articles
While demand for subsidised services is high and rising, many parts of the system need improvement. The federal budget can’t solve these problems by placing the entire burden on taxpayers.
Our experts weigh up the winners and losers in a budget that had to balance an immediate cost-of-living crisis with long-term ambitions for health and climate change.
But are the major parties really focusing on the right issues?
Australia needs a new home-care model – one that provides much more personalised support to help older people get the services they need and that manages local service systems for them.
The new Community Pharmacy Agreement will make it easier for Australia’s pharmacists to spend time providing expert health advice to customers rather than focusing on retail revenues.
Canada is investing millions to develop COVID-19 treatments, but there are no safeguards to ensure that those vaccines and medications will be affordable and accessible to the people who need them.
How do we develop new drugs quickly yet safely? How prepared are we to give up some personal freedoms? And how do we allocate scarce resources? These are just some of the tough questions we face.
Pharmacies are paid a set amount to dispense most medicines, so the more they dispense, the greater their income. But there’s a better way to pay pharmacists and improve health care at the same time.
Young people continue to cancel their private health insurance despite discounts to entice them to stay. Instead, we should reduce their premiums based on their likelihood of needing health care.
Medical crowdfunding raises billions of dollars annually – mostly for those who already have good jobs and own their own homes.
Canada’s systems of health funding, medical training and physician compensation need an overhaul – to support vital centres of medical research and complex care.
Yes, doctors’ fees should be transparent, but that requirement alone doesn’t go far enough to combat “bill shock”. Specialists should also be required to set fees that are “fair and reasonable”.
One would think governments would do all they could to ensure palliative care is available to all who need it. This is not the case in Australia today.
President Trump declared the opioid epidemic a national emergency. But we need to do a lot more to prevent this crisis from escalating even further.
People with learning disabilities need to have a say in the government policy that rules their lives.
A plan to fine hospitals for avoidable hospitalisations and pay GPs to prevent them has many issues. The main problem is that it’s impossible to measure the outcomes of health care in Australia.
After-hours home medical services cost the taxpayer dearly and don’t reduce emergency department visits, according to new research.
The fund is nothing more than a rebadging exercise in the hope people might think it is a new policy. And it’s being used to airbrush public hospitals out of the Medicare picture.
The latest federal budget leaves mental health chronically underfunded, with inequitable access to services, and without a clear national strategy.
Top contributors
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Stephen Duckett is a Friend of The Conversation.Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice, The University of Melbourne
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Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra
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Professor of Medicine, Monash University
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Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Centre for Primary Health Care and Equity, University of New South Wales, UNSW Sydney
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Associate Professor, School of Law, University of Canberra
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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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Professor of Bioethics & Medicine, Sydney Health Ethics, Haematologist/BMT Physician, Royal North Shore Hospital and Director, Praxis Australia, University of Sydney
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Fellow, Centre for Mental Health Research, Australian National University
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Emeritus Professor, La Trobe University
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Scientia Professor & Head of the School of Psychiatry, UNSW Sydney
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Associate Professor of Finance, UNSW Sydney
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Professor of Politics, Massey University
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Professor of Public Health Policy, Deakin University
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Assistant Professor, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
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Senior Research Fellow (Hon), University of Sydney. Editor, Health Information Management Journal (HIMJ), University of Sydney
