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The Australian Healthcare SystemLatshia GardnerBryant & Stratton CollegeECON220: MacroeconomicsMr. P. Savasta11/14/17Australia’s healthcare system is one of the best healthcare systems in the world. Australian citizens must be very contented, with most of the health care expenditures being paid by the governing bodies. People also have a choice to have private health insurance on top of that – with dental, optical, surgical and hospital service included is an ideal system. Australians enjoy one of the longest life expectancies, while costs as a proportion of the gross domestic product (GDP) remain around the median among countries. Austria’s ageing population, longer life expectancy, and increased rates of chronic diseases and cancers are creating increasing demands for health care services, which are also contributing to rising health care costs worldwide. Australia has found themselves challenged in serval area due to these rising costs. The Australia governments struggle to meet demands for access to new and expensive medicines, health technologies, surgical interventions and hospital care and costs are unsustainable CITATION Hea16 \l 1033 (Robertson, Newby, & Walkom, 2016).Due to these pressures on the Australian health care system, there are longer hospital waiting lists, higher patient co-payments, rising private health insurance premiums and problems for patients in meeting out-of-pocket health-related expenses (Robertson, et. al., 2016, para.1).Australia’s healthcare system is 9.4% of the nation’s GDP which averages $4,115 per capita. Australia’s healthcare system is publicly and privately financed. The federal government funds Medicare, a universal public health insurance program providing free or subsidized access to care for Australian citizens, residents with a permanent visa, and New Zealand citizens following their enrollment in the program and confirmation of identity (Commonwealth Fund, 2016, p. 2).The Commonwealth Fund reports that:Australia's health care system is funded and administered by several levels of government (national, state/territory and local) and is supported by private health insurance arrangements. Australia’s national public health insurance scheme, Medicare, is funded and administered by the Australian government and consists of three health care components – medical services (including visits to general practitioners (GPs) and other medical practitioners), prescription pharmaceuticals, and hospital treatment as a public patient (the latter is jointly funded by the Australian and state/territory governments).Private health insurance is available to those who would like better and faster service. The federal government mainly provides funding and indirect support to the states and health professions, subsidizing primary care providers through the Medicare Benefits Scheme (MBS) and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) and providing funds for state services. Nearly half of the Australian population (47%) had private hospital coverage and nearly 56 percent had general treatment coverage in 2015.The Australian health care system provides universal access to a comprehensive range of services, largely publicly funded through general taxation. Medicare was introduced in 1984 and covers universal access to free treatment in public hospitals and subsidies for medical services (Australia Bureau of Statistics, 2012, para. 7). Public hospitals are owned and operated by the state and territory governments, which also deliver a variety of mental health, dental, health promotion, school health and community health programs. Under funding agreements with the Commonwealth, all Australians are entitled to free treatment as a public patient in a public hospital. The private hospital sector is gr`owing in size and complexity. There is an increasing presence of for-profit firms operating several hospitals (Commonwealth Fund, 2016, para. 10).Australia’s federal government, with a national (Commonwealth) government, six states and two territories, are responsible for maintaining affairs on the state level. However, the Commonwealth government holds the greatest power to raise revenue, therefore states rely on financial transfers from the Commonwealth to support their health systems. Although there is a specific income tax levy (the Medicare levy), it raises a small portion of total finance. There is also a high reliance on out of pocket payments, at 17% of total expenditure. (Commonwealth Fund, 2016, para. 8).The services that are offered by Australia’s healthcare system include hospital care, medical services, and pharmaceuticals. States provide further funding and are responsible for the delivery of free public hospital services, including subsidies and incentive payments in the areas of prevention, chronic disease management, and mental health care. The MBS provides for limited optometry and children’s dental care (Commonwealth Fund para. 6).The pros of the United States adopting Australia’s healthcare system are that its financed and controlled by the federal Australian government. Australian “Medicare” is a tax-funded public insurance program that is free for all. This includes physician and hospital facilities, as well as part of the cost of prescriptions. Special benefits for the family are also provided (Health Care Information, 2017. para. 4). states: It is not only the patients who receive benefits from the government’s health care program but also the doctors and physicians who either earn a salary and are able to receive additional fees for seeing private patients while working in a public hospital. Hourly compensation is given to them if they are in private practice, for treating public patients. It seems to be a win-win situation here for the Australians.In the English-speaking world, the death rate in Australia from medical care is one of the lowest. It is even lower than that of the USA and the UK. There is equity of access to health facilities and services (Health care information, 2017, para. 14).The cons of adopting Australia’s healthcare system are that initial reviews of Australia’s healthcare system were off the charts with many positive results, but in the long term, these advances are now under risk due to an aging population, the growing burden of chronic illness, and the increasingly outdated organization of Australian health services stretch the health care system to its limits CITATION ABS12 \l 1033 (Australia Bureau of Statistics, 2012).As many as one in five Australians live with two or more chronic health conditions, including diabetes, heart disease, cancer, arthritis and mental health, which require a range of health services including GPs and specialists. This is creating problems in Australians long-term care and making costs of care astronomical CITATION Pau16 \l 1033 (Keup, 2016). The Australian Medical Association’s president, Prof Brian Owler, said: the AMA was pleased with Australia’s healthcare system and would consider implementing some form of it, but that the system had “major missing pieces” because it did not include the amount and nature of funding for primary healthcare beyond the trial period CITATION Pau16 \p "para. 9" \l 1033 (Keup, 2016, p. para. 9).The opposition spokeswoman on the health care system, Catherine King, said “proposals to better manage chronic care are doomed unless the Turnbull government abandons its more than $2 billion in cuts to general practice” CITATION Pau16 \p "para. 14" \l 1033 (Keup, 2016, p. para. 14).The Guardian goes on to state:Not only is it expensive, it’s stressful and exhausting finding specialists, filling prescriptions, visiting GPs and attending outpatient facilities, when each condition is too often treated in isolation from the others, with little coordination or communication between health providers.In 2014, 33 million individuals in the United States were uninsured, representing 10.4 percent of the population (U.S. Census Bureau, 2014). The implementation of the ACA’s major coverage expansions in January 2014, however, has increased the share of the population with insurance CITATION Com17 \l 1033 (Commonwealth Fund, 2016).Per the Commonwealth fund:The rate of uninsured citizens in the United States among working-age adults fell by 7 percent between September 2013 and March 2015; another survey found that 17.6 million previously uninsured people have acquired health insurance coverage. It is projected that the ACA will reduce the number of uninsured by 24 million by 2018.The United States health care spending grew 5.8 percent in 2015, reaching $3.2 trillion or $9,990 per person. As a share of the nation's Gross Domestic Product, health spending accounted for 17.8 percent with the Australian healthcare system only representing approximately 9% GDP in the United States health care is big business (CMS, 2016, para. 4). The United States spends more on health care, as a percentage of GDP, than any other advanced country in the world and has worse health outcomes – with lower life expectancy, higher infant mortality and higher obesity rates than comparable countries like Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Japan (Callaghan, 2016, para. 6).At the root of our society, Americans and conservatives tend to have a strong belief in classic liberalism, and the idea that the government should play a limited role in society. Which may keep us from seeing the benefits of a universal health care system.The Guardian reported that:Trump recently said [paraphrasing] “Australia’s healthcare system is better than ours.” I think many Americans would agree with that. Australia has universal healthcare. It doesn’t leave 15% of its citizens without coverage due to preexisting conditions and prohibitive costs.Australia has been able to maintain a universal healthcare system that still allows doctors control over the treatment of their patients, this is the ideal scenario for quality care to be received and death rate lower than any English-speaking country. So, why has the United States not adopted some model of a universal healthcare system? We are capitalists to our hearts! As a nation with entrepreneurial spirits, Americans want what we want, when we want it.People of power such as interest groups do not want a universal healthcare system. Generating 1.2 billion in lobbying in 2009 alone. These interest groups are paying to keep the money flowing there the U.S. healthcare system. Right now, our health care system is around 17% of our GDP which equals big money but again we also have the worst health outcomes. Americans are general against anything that looks like entitlement Ultimately, the United States remains one of the only advanced industrialized nations without a comprehensive national health insurance system, and with little prospect for one developing under the next president, because of the many ways America is exceptional (U.S. News, 2016, para. 17). With all of Australia’s great success, its universal healthcare system has its down falls that Australia is now facing such as the great hurdles of long waits for care, high out of pocket cost, and a dilemma in how to fund the problem of their aging population and chronic disease. With these problems known the U.S. could adjust accordingly and benefit from Australia’s model of healthcare. The United States needs to take a long look at our healthcare system and learn from other countries that have been successful in tackling today’s health care problem.Australia seems to have come up with a great plan of attack in the war on healthcare. If the United States considered adopting this healthcare system, it would give everyone access to health care, and allow for those who want better healthcare, to purchase more coverage if needed. Essentially, we can see that universal health care systems work, it’s just a point of finding a model that will work for us here in the U.S.Healthcare is a basic need of every human being. It should be considered as a basic human right, in which the nation should ensure that every person is covered by equal healthcare, regardless the age, gender, and income. Here in the U.S., we have chosen money over life, and this must come to an end. America needs cost-effective universal health care as it exists in every other industrialized country. No other nation uses our unique private insurance system which penalizes the sick by charging them more, by reducing their benefits, or by denying care altogether. There aren’t any that allow private insurance companies to place profit over coverage.We must move beyond the inflexible, complex, expensive, and limited reforms offered by the Affordable Care Act. In the long run, having ineffective healthcare is costing us productivity, and health care cost. With a universal health care system, employers would have a healthier and more productive work force. If we implement the universal health care system, other economic benefits would also increase. References BIBLIOGRAPHY (2016, March 21). Retrieved from Commonwealth Fund: (2016, Oct 26). Retrieved from U.S. News: Bureau of Statistics. (2012, june 24). Retrieved from , T. (2016, Oct. 26). Retrieved from U.S. Today: , g. (2016, Dec. 2). Retrieved from : care information. (2017, 28 Oct.). Retrieved from , P. (2016, March 31). Retrieved from The Guardian: , J., Newby, D. A., & Walkom, E. J. (2016). Health Care Spending: Changes in the Perceptions of the Australian Public. 2. ................
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