The Coalition’s hollowing out of Medicare

Moving towards the ‘tapeworm in the US health system’?

John Menadue writes on his website (19.6.16):

‘Malcolm Turnbull says that the Coalition will ‘never, ever, privatise Medicare’. Given the wide public support for Medicare and Malcolm Turnbull’s way with words his attempted rebuttal is not surprising.

‘But the Coalition has been eroding Medicare from within for a decade and a half since John Howard. The vehicle for this erosion is private health insurance (PHI) and the government is facilitating this process with the $11 billion p.a. taxpayer funded subsidy to support private health insurance.

‘And the ALP does not seem to care. It scarcely ever mentions the damage of PHI. Is it scared of this vested interest?

‘If people want PHI, that is their right, but it should not be at the expense of others and in the process, erode Medicare. …

‘Steadily we are moving down the disastrous US path of PHI with its horrific costs and unfairness. Warren Buffet has described private health insurance in the US as the ‘tapeworm in the US health system’.

• Privatisation and the hollowing out of Medicare »
• Is Medicare under threat? Making sense of the privatisation debate »
• Chequered history, uncertain future: Medicare and the election »
• History lesson: A Medicare scare might not be fair, but it works »

• The Coalition’s regional health plan »

• Bill Shorten is right: Malcolm Turnbull is a major threat to Medicare »