Just 25 years after its introduction, Australia is ready to give up on free universal healthcare in favor of an American-style user-pays health insurance system. Led by Australia’s most populous state, New South Wales (NSW), the move is precipitated by an ageing population relying more and more on government services and soaring healthcare costs as government doctors abandon emergency rooms for conferences and “research days.”
In an interview with Australia’s The Daily Telegraph, NSW health director-general Debora Picone describes the Australian healthcare system as “hurtling” towards a “U.S. style user-pays system” over the next five years. ”We are really on the edge of losing the universal healthcare system that this country has,” Picone told The Daily Telegraph.
The NSW state hospital budget is expected to rise from $13.2 billion (Australian dollars) to an estimated $50 billion (Australian dollars) by 2025.
“I would have (previously) said we’d had 10 years to run. It’s now looking like we’ve got five years to run because the cost escalations are so significant and we haven’t prepared ourselves,” Picone told The Daily Telegraph.
According to published reports, NSW has been trying to get doctors to agree to a five-day work week, but they have refused with the support of the Australian Medical Association and Australian medical colleges who, in some cases, refuse to accredit hospital emergency departments unless they limit a doctor’s work week to three days.
Tags: Australia, government doctors, universal healthcare, user-pays
