The Health of a Nation

Last night I was watching Michael Moore's Sicko, and it made me feel very grateful for always living in a country that provides free health care.  The film focused on how the American health service has evolved to be run by rich insurance companies who will do anything they can to not pay out, leaving even the most comprehensibly insured out of pocket or refused medical treatment altogether.  The reasons for this quite unique anti-public health care stance is put down to an irrational fear of socialism drip fed to the general public by the government.  It is a stance which is unlikely to change anytime soon as President Obama's own attempts to create health care reforms has proved.  It is also the main reason I would never want to live in the USA.

The Australian health care service is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it is a million times better than that provided by the USA.  GP's, blood tests, stays in hospital and even opticians are completely free, but like the UK it does not pay for dentists (this is why Barnadi still goes to his sister in Jakarta if he needs any dental work done).  Medicines are not free but are heavily subsidised by the pharmaceutical benefits scheme, general patients can expect to pay a maximum of $35 for a prescription and patients with a concession a mere $5.80.  This is not quite as good a deal as you get in the UK where a standard prescription charge is around £7 and anyone with a concession gets all their medicines for free.

Health insurance does exist in Australia, and probably more common here than in the UK, the main advantage the insurance companies try to sell you is the tax refund you get from the government for having private health insurance.  They fail to mention that the premiums for the health insurance are more expensive than the medicare levy!

The one thing you do need to have insurance for is ambulance cover as this is a service the government in Australia does not pay for.  Ambulances are not cheap, and are usually required in an emergency, so it is not something that you can budget for.  This is a big issue for me, coming from the UK where you never had to worry about whether you can afford to call an ambulance or just hope that chest pain will go away by itself.......