What+do+the+Australian+political+parties+provide+to+the+public+from+a+health+care+perspective?

**//Tutor: Katie Page//**
//‘Keeping the Bastards Honest’: What do Labor, the Liberals, and the Greens Bring to the Public Health Table? Who should we vote for from a Public Health Perspective and Why?//
 * Topic:**



This artefact portrays that the Australian economy and way of life has been "killed" by Julia Gillard with the axe of "political correctness". She is then instructing her "pet" vulture Bob Brown (leader of the Australian green political party) perched on her arm, to feed upon the corpse of the economy that has been exterminated by her self-proclaimed form of political correctness. Bob Brown is illustrated as the vulture because of his ideological plan to tax the public ridiculous amounts in just about every way possible.
 * Artefact:**

The political dispute with regards to the public health care system has been going on for what seems like forever. With each of the different political parties having their own unique idea of how the system should be structured. This artefact symbolises that the Australian way of life and the Australian economy is over, due to the policies of Julia Gillard with her attempts of "political correctness". It also portrays The Greens political leader, Bob Brown, as a scavenger with his numerous attempts at taxing the public back to the "stone age" and developing the public system whilst trying to phase out the private system (Zeg, 2010). The issue present is that the current public health system is under developed and not enough time and money is being spent on developing this system. This essay will discuss the structure of the current public health system in regards to public and private health insurance. Despite the billions of dollars that are spent on health services each year by all levels of government and non-government sources, many people report that they are unable to access the care they require. Improving these health services is one of the objectives of the National Healthcare Agreement (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2010). As can be seen in the artefact it symbolizes that Julia Gillard does not care for the Australian way of life or economy and has pushed it to the side with her beliefs of political correctness.
 * Public Health Issue:**

Public health can be defined as the "science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals" (Winslow, 1920). In the current healthcare system, there is a great deal of importance on the promotion of general wellbeing and public health. Patients are expected to employ in self care and take a more proactive role in maintaining their health. This is evident in both the government's public health agenda and the wider health agenda (Toofany, 2007). The Australian government encourages as much of the public to cover themselves and their family with private health insurance, but how does private health insurance work? Well there are two types of private health insurance available, these include "hospital policies" and "general treatment policies". The hospital policies private insurance covers you when you go to hospitals, while the general treatment policies covers you for your ancillary treatments (dental, physiotherapy, ect.). Most health fund off combined policies that provide "packaged" cover for both policies. In order to encourage the public to get on board with the private health insurance system The Australian Government introduced the "Private Health Insurance Rebate". This provides the public who are insured with private health insurance a rebate of atleast 30% of their insurance costs (Australian Government, 2011).
 * Literature Review:**

So what does private health insurance entail? In June of 2006 private health insurance was offered by 38 registered health insurers. It gave a voluntary option to all Australians for private funding of their preferred hospital. It, simply put, enhances the Medicare system, which provides a tax-financed public system that is available to all Australians. Private health insurance provides cover against all, or part of, hospital accommodation costs, medical costs in both a public or private hospital and expenses that are not covered by Medicare (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2006). The general public with private health insurance chose to do so because of various reasons. The most common of these reasons being piece of mind/security/ protection with 47% of the privately insured public stating this. Other reasons include choice of doctor (25%) and shorter waiting times for treatment (23%). The general public whom were not insured with private health insurance state that is simply too expensive and they cannot afford it (66%), medicare cover sufficient (14%) and do not need/in perfect health (13%) (Australian Bureau of Statistics 1998).

Most of the Australian public make use of the health services available to them. But despite the billions of dollars that are invested into the health services yearly by government and non-government sources, an expansive amount of the public state that they are unable to access the health care which they deserve and require. Development and Improvement of these public health services is one of the objectives of the National Healthcare Agreement. Services provided by the government aim to promote, restore and maintain optimal health in the general public. Over the 2008-09 period all levels of the government poured roughly $78.6 billion on health good and services alone. This amounted to about 70% of the $112.8 billion spent on health goods and services from all government and non-government sources. Although this sounds like a ridiculous amount of money to be spent of health goods and services alone, the governments should pay more attention to what the public need as apposed to what they think the public need (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2011).

The three political parties have different visions of how the public health system structure should be. The current public health system structure is run by Julia Gillard and the labor party. They strongly believe that further funding of public and private hospitals is the best way to go about the public health system. So to put it simply labor party believe that having a mixture of both public and private hospitals but encouragement in placed on public hospitals. It is then up to the individual do decided where they want private health insurance or not (Australian Labor Party, 2011). The liberal party believe that the public with private health insurance should receive full rebates. They believe that this will relieve the stress and workload placed upon the public hospitals. This method encourages the public with extra benefits and incentives (Australian Liberal Party, 2011). On the complete opposite end of the spectrum The Australian Greens plan to completely eradicate the private health system and rather expansively develop a universal public health system through progressive taxation (The Australian Greens Party, 2011).

In order for the general public to be completely satisfied with the health care system a balance needs to be developed between the two types of health insurance. Equal funding must be provided to both health care systems in order to eradicate inequality (Bell 2009).

The current public health care system is run under the power and supervision of the Labour party and its leader Julia Gillard. Currently a great deal of money is pumped into the public health system as funding. But where does this money come from? A large portion of is comes from the GST (Goods and Service Tax) that each of the sates collect from general purchases. The amount of money that comes from each state however is not equal. This is because states with a more dense population will be collecting more money from GST and thus contribute more money than other states. For example Queensland and New South Wales are the most populated states in Australia and they are the states who pay the most GST. WA are another state that pay a high rate of GST due to the large amount of mining taking place in the WA region (Parkin and Anderson 2007). The people that would be affected by this issue would be the general population of these states. This is because they have a greater population that the other states and therefore should have more money invested into their facilities. This should be accomplished by all states contributing an equal amount of GST to the government. Any extra GST left over should be reinvested back into upgrading and expanding the more populated areas of the state/country.
 * Cultural and Social Analysis:**

There are many advantages to have private health insurance over just simply using the public system. One of these advantages is that if you are privately insured you are taxed less because you are not using the public system. This is fine for people who can afford to have private health insurance but there is fair sized amount of the population who simply cannot afford this. They are therefore taxed more because they are not privately insured and are using the public system. This causes another problem for the less fortunate people who are taxed for this public system but do not use it because they are perfectly healthy. The people most affected by this issue are the people in poverty and are in low income circumstances. Thus the "upper class" wealthier population group benefit from this issue, not only from extra benefits of health care but also less taxation (Butler 2002).

This artefact displays the Australian economy and way of life after Julia Gillard is finished with it. The remains of what used to be a well build economy and lifestyle lying on the floor in ruins as Julia instructs her scavenging pet, Bob Brown, to take what is left. Personally I believe this is an accurate representation of what has happened to the economy with Julia Gillard in charge. Her only concern seems to be money, meanwhile the public is crying out for more development in the public health system, as they cannot receive the treatment they both require and deserve. But as can be seen in the artefact, they are more preoccupied will scavenging as much as they can from the Australian public.
 * Analysis of Artefact:**

This overview of the political situation has allowed me to gain a more in-depth understanding of the public health system put in place by each of the political parties. It has allowed me to explore the policies put in place by each of the political parties and it has furthermore allowed me to make my own decision on the issues I feel are being overlooked. This assignment has also allowed me to gain a broader understanding of Australian politics in general.
 * Learning Reflections:**

Zeg. (2010). Feeding the beast - The Australian TEA party
 * Reference List**

Winslow, C.A. (1920). The untilled fields of Public Health. //Science.// 51(1306): 23–33. doi: 10.1126/science.51.1306.23

Toofany, S. (2007). Learning the language of health. // Nursing Management - UK //, // 14 //(6), 10-14.

Australian Government Private Health Insurance Ombudsman. (2011) - Private Health Insurance Explained []

Australian Government Private Health Insurance Ombudsman. (2011) - Private Health Insurance Rebate []

Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2006). Private Health Insurance: A Snapshot Cat. no. 4815.0.55.001 []

Australian Bureau of Statistics. (1998). Health Insurance Survey Cat. no. 4335.0 []

Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2011). Australian Social Trends. Cat. no. 4102.0 []

Australian Labor Party. (2011) - Health Reform []

The Australian Greens Party (2011) - Health []

The Australian Liberal Party (2011) - Health Policies []

Bell, M. M. (2009). Commentary: The problem of the original capitalist. // Environment & Planning A //, // 41 //(6), 1276-1282. doi:10.1068/a4284

Parkin, A., & Anderson, G. (2007). The Howard Government, Regulatory Federalism and the Transformation of Commonwealth-State Relations. // Australian Journal Of Political Science //, // 42 //(2), 295-314. doi:10.1080/10361140701320034

Butler James R G (2002) Policy change and private health insurance: did the cheapest policy do the trick?.//Australian Health Review// **25**, 33–41