Patrica Dasic
The unnamed member of the Tasmanian Government whose ruminations on the health system and how to fix it feature in Sue Neales’ article Cure from the heart , (Mercury, 15/11) leaves a gaping hole in his idea of buying private health insurance for Tasmanians rather than providing a public system. That is, the not-so-small matter of the public money propping up private health insurance, $3.4 billion according to the last budget papers and rising inexorably each year.
Recent work by a Monash University academic concluded this amount of money could fund ten new public hospitals, which seems about right if one considers that Victoria’s largest regional hospital network has a budget in the vicinity of $300 million per annum.
Is it more than coincidence this suggestion for private health stepping in should come at a time when the Health Minister Lara Giddings is making a second trip to the USA? That is a place where the population is reliant on having private health insurance in order to access treatment. It is not a system that serves the American public well. 50 million Americans are completely unable to afford any private health insurance and 25 million more can afford only inadequate insurance to cover their needs. There are places in the world with good health systems that include participation by the private insurance sector but America is not one of them.
Also, private health insurers were, until recent times, not-for-profit organisations. That has changed and several, especially larger ones, are now owned by shareholders such as the British insurance giant BUPA. In America health insurance companies are known to meddle in, and often withhold, the treatment patients require, shareholder interests taking precedence over patient need. Would Tasmanians really want to be exposed to such risks?
Were it not for the fact the Health Minister seems to have an unhealthy interest in the American system one might dismiss her unnamed colleague’s musings as tongue-in-cheek nonsense. This also brings to mind the recent debacle of ABC Learning, where public funding was supporting that house of cards.
Patricia Dasic
