a harmonised australia

Rob Schaap rws at comserver.canberra.edu.au
Wed Dec 16 08:37:27 PST 1998


G'day all,

Ange writes lots of good stuff, needful of but one modification:


>the liberal-national govt announced two things today:

Well, three really. The bastards are also giving $1.7 billion to the private health insurance sector by way of tax rebates to the wealthy few who currently subscribe to their 'product'. What's so 'private' about a publicly-funded insurance sector? Why wouldn't the private insurance sector just raise its premiums to absorb the windfall? Why not just fix the health system (and stop pretending the insurance sector IS the health system)? How can a heap of competing, effectively publicly-funded 'private' insurance companies be as 'efficient' as a single public-sector insurer? were the private insurers really suffering? How are waiting lists going to be affected (it's not as if this enriching of the funds is gonna expand the actual health resources out there)?

My answers are too predictable to note here.

Seethe, spit, moan ...

Rob.



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