More Australians delay or skip dental care because of cost than their peers in most wealthy countries. Adding dental to Medicare wouldn’t be easy, but it would vastly improve Australians’ health.
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Articles on Health financing
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Aged care providers can’t find staff and a crisis is brewing. If the problem isn’t fixed, there are serious risks to quality and access to services for older people who need support.
Making the wrong decision about how to access care can impact both your health and finances. So what are your options? And what policy reforms are needed to improve affordable access to health care?
Rather than bold reforms that will safeguard Australians’ aged care services into the future, the taskforce largely recommends tidying up and keeping the status quo. And getting users to pay more.
National Cabinet is meeting today to discuss hospital funding, and the interconnected issues of NDIS reform and GST allocation. But how are hospitals actually funded? And what’s GST got to do with it?
Access to dental care in Australia is worse than ever and is simply unaffordable to many.
Yes, savings from increased participation in private insurance outweigh the costs the government incurs by subsidising private health insurance rebates. But rebates can be better targeted.
The federal budget is a step in the right direction, particularly in improving pay rates for aged-care workers. But the medium- to long-term future remains bleak without further, significant reforms.
The big news on budget night was a tripling of the bulk-billing incentive. It’s hoped to stem the decline in bulk billing – but it’s unclear if it will increase it.
The new reforms tackle some of the biggest challenges in general practice: outmoded technology, GPs working with little support, a broken funding model and restrictive regulations.
The Pharmacy Guild head wept at the thought of pharmacies losing income from a change that allows people with chronic diseases to halve their prescription costs. What’s going on?
In Australia’s bulk-billing ‘deserts’, it’s incredibly difficult to find a doctor who will bulk bill. The government should step in to support or set up clinics so locals have access to health care.
Rwanda has built a healthcare delivery system on primary healthcare with individuals and communities at the centre.
Addressing the noncommunicable disease pandemic can also mitigate challenges facing people living with HIV and complement efforts against TB.
A new Grattan report recommends making general practice a team sport, using the skills of other clinicians and health-care workers.
Singapore will start charging people who choose not to be vaccinated for any COVID-related hospital care. While Australia’s hospitals are also under pressure, we shouldn’t follow suit.
New private health insurance data show young people are continuing to drop their cover. But the industry’s argument a youth exodus will put pressure on public hospitals isn’t necessarily right.
The family home has largely been protected from mean tests to determine how much older people should pay for their aged care. It’s time this changed.
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.
It is perfectly legal for a doctor working in private practice to charge what they believe is fair and reasonable. But that doesn’t mean it’s OK to charge tens of thousands of dollars for a procedure.
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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Health economist, University of Sydney
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Reader in Health Economics, Centre for Health Economics, University of York
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Emeritus Professor of Public Health, La Trobe University
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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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Adjunct Associate Professor, Menzies Centre for Health Policy and Economics, University of Sydney
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Associate, Grattan Institute
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Head, Statistics and Decision Analysis Academic Platform, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
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Lecturer, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne
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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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Senior Lecturer, Health Care Management, School of Medicine, Flinders University
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Professor of Medicine, Monash University
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Professor, School of Computing and Information Engineering, Ulster University
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Emeritus Professor, School of Public Health, University of the Western Cape
