Healthcare - The View From Oz
By Gordonskene Tuesday Oct 06, 2009 3:56pm
(Healthcare Debate 2007 - Australian for slugfest)
How the rest of the world views Health Care is pretty enlightening. If you get past the notion that the rest of the world thinks we're pretty strange, and that they are actually several years, if not decades ahead of us in the minutiae of Health issues.
During the 2007 elections in Australia, where Labor (center-Left) swept to power after an 11-year run with the Liberal Party (center-Right) falling out of favor with the electorate. I managed to run across a debate regarding the state of Health Care Down Under from October 31, 2007.
Special thanks to my colleague NonnyMouse, who steered me in several right directions in trying to sort out the issues.
This debate, which almost didn't happen, features Shadow Health Minister Nicola Roxon and incumbent Liberal Health Minister Tony Abbott. Abbott, it appeared, had finished delivering a series of Mea Culpas earlier in the day over a remark he made regarding an Asbestos related Cancer sufferer whom he chided for "publicity seeking".
After a 30 minute delay, Abbott appeared in the studio and the debate picked up.
Nicola Roxon (Labor Party): “The future challenges that are facing our health system are significant. We have a growing burden of chronic disease, we have an ageing population, we know that there are increasing costs of new technologies, and there is waste and inefficiency generated by the buck-passing and blame shifting that characterizes Commonwealth/State relations. Honestly, if the Commonwealth/State relationship were a marriage, the partners would be in counseling, the states would be seeking maintenance payment in the courts, and the parties would both have a strong case for divorce on the grounds of mental cruelty.”
Tony Abbott (Liberal Party): “The idea that the Prime Minister could personally run the public hospital system is bizarre. And only in a slightly surreal political contest could Kevin Rudd (Labor PM candidate) have got away with making this bizarre claim. But someone does have to be in charge, that’s absolutely essential. And that person should be responsible to and accountable to local people. Now I think every public hospital should have boards. I don’t say the public hospitals would work perfectly if they had boards, but I tell you what, they’d work a lot better if they had boards, particularly if they had boards with doctors and nurses and former patients on them. The Government will be announcing a major public hospital policy in the next week or so. The details will be revealed then. But I certainly think that every hospital should have a board, and you’ll see what the Governments precise policy is in just a week or so.”
Roxon: “Well, I think the Minister has shown that he really hasn’t got a clear plan at all for what these local boards will deliver for Public Hospitals. In fact, we spent quite a bit of the time on the phone yesterday dealing with the problems that the Minister has created in the takeover with the Mersey Hospital. I’m sure the Minister didn’t particularly want to talk with me, but the Caretaker Conventions require that he does, although he doesn’t need my agreement.”
After the debate it got nasty.
You may wonder why I am including this. It's another country with an established Public Healthcare system (in addition to a private one), and these issues may seemingly not apply to us. The deal is - Every country in the world has some form of Universal Healthcare and we are the only ones on the planet resisting it, mostly out of ignorance or fear brought on by interests not working on behalf of the people they are entrusted to care. To witness other debates from other places, and hear how problems are being solved from other perspectives casts a more informative light on the argument at hand.
And it doesn't hurt to know what other people are doing about it.
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Thanks for including this. I have a couple of clarifications (I'm a local):
There is no "coalition party" as such.
When we refer to "the coalition" we mean the coalition of the Liberal Party (who are the conservatives. yes, we know it doesn't make sense), and the rural focussed National Party.
Also, just to clarify, Roxon was not the minister in this debate. Abbott, being the government member, was the minister and Roxon was what we call the Shadow minister, which means she speaks for the opposition on health issues.
And yes, we do shake our heads in bewilderment that the US finds it such a controversial issue.
Thanks so much for clarifying things and apologies for the mistakes. I confess to getting a little confused over Liberal versus Coalition. I need to do my homework as world politics in the area of Health Care is fascinating to me and I think something the audience can benefit from. So thanks again and keep reminding me when I get something wrong, it is completely appreciated. BTW, I went in and made the corrections.
Gordon
No need to apologise. Happy to help. Thanks for taking an interest.
A look at the UK and France and New Zealand, which I've had personal experience with, as well as most of Europe and just about every other civilized country (and even some not-so-civilized) with universal health care would, or at least one would hope, SHOULD be a wakeup call to every American, and realize what a truly crappy bum deal they've had for years and years, and what a truly crappy bum deal insurance companies and most of the status quo in Washington would like to con you into believing is 'the best in the world'.
They're lying. I've seen the best in the world, the actually acknowledged by the WHO as 'the best' in the world, France, and it truly is a difference between night and day, black and white, medieval barbarity and civilized enlightenment...
...life and death.
As a local, i'm here to say that perhaps the Liberal party (conservative) is centre right, Tony Abbott is not. He is quite right wing.
The Liberal Party as a whole is a centre right entity, but has many parliamentary representatives from further to the right. Abbot is one, as are Sharman Stone, Nick Minchin, kevin Andrews and Concetta Fierravanti-Wells.
In the USA, though, these would all be mainstream or moderate Republicans.
That was a two year old debate when the present govt. was in opposition. Couldn't you come up with something up to date. Abbott is a right wing politician even he wouldn't dismantle universal healthcare.I know you think we lag behind as a country, but Australia's health system is way ahead of the US. I have a chronic illness and would be homeless in America, but enjoy free hospital outpatient treatment plus all the other free goodies associated with our system, plus a very good welfare safety net that allows me to live a normal life.
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