Editorial:

Government out to sink Medicare

The Howard Government's "rescue package" for medical insurance announced 
two weeks ago is designed to protect and provide certainty for insurance 
company profits at the expense of ordinary working Australians. The 
Government will also exploit the crisis to further undermine Medicare.

The package includes the imposition of a levy of $2000 per year for five to 
ten years on GPs who are, or have been, members of collapsed health 
insurance funds such as United Medical Protection.

The Australian Medical Association President Kerryn Phelps warned that more 
doctors would stop bulk billing and that patients would have to pay more to 
see the doctor. Doctors are also more likely to scrap no-gap billing, so 
that patients with private insurance will also pay more for a hospital 
visit.

What an utter disgrace that governments with their deregulation agendas 
have allowed insurance companies to run riot in pursuit of profits.

How many people would have realised that their local GP and the entire 
range of specialist services were on a knife's edge, dependent on the 
unstable and money-grabbing machinations of a few giant insurance 
conglomerates. Although many of the insurance companies involved are "not 
for profit" they are milking machines for the big corporations that own 
private hospitals, pathology, X-rays and Medical Centres.

Even the guarantee the Federal Government has given, to cover malpractice 
claims from April 29 to December 31 this year, is backward looking. And the 
package is based in part on the States putting in place legislation to 
limit damages awarded. The campaign is well underway to blame the insurance 
crisis — which is part of the general economic crisis — on lawyers, legal 
services and litigants (the victims) seeking compensation for damages.

The NSW Carr Government is leading the way with sweeping changes aimed at 
severely restricting payouts for damages and exempting some businesses from 
negligence laws.

Further in NSW, all the State's family planning clinics have had to close 
indefinitely. The insurance company covering the Family Planning 
Association's services, the US-based St Paul, has withdrawn from the 
Australian market.

The Association provided contraception and sexual health advice, pap 
smears, pelvic and breast examination and pregnancy tests and counselling. 
It needed a minimum of $10 million worth of cover, as stipulated by the 
Commonwealth.

Far from reining in the problem, the planned changes will actually increase 
insurance company profits.

As the Australian Democrats pointed out, when the then Governor of the US 
state of Texas, George W Bush, clamped down on the right to sue for damages 
in that State, in the following three years insurance companies reaped 
windfall profits of US$3 billion, while premiums stayed at the same level 
as other States.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has found that 
the last raft of tort law changes, driven by the Carr Government's attack 
on compulsory third party insurance in NSW, also resulted in a huge profit 
for insurance companies.

"Bob Carr's defence, that it is up to the ACCC to ensure savings are passed 
on, misses the fundamental point", said the Democrats' John Cherry, "that 
the ACCC does not control prices and that the pricing and risk and 
assessment decisions of insurance companies are clouded in secrecy and 
obfuscation."

That there is no solution forthcoming from the Howard Government is really 
no surprise. This, after all is a golden opportunity for them to advance 
their ultimate goal of dismantling Medicare.

The Government is totally committed to free-market, for-profit mayhem in 
every sphere of the economy. Thus, in the face of a major crisis in as 
fundamental and essential a service as the health system, we are given this 
short-term, short-sighted exercise in political manipulation. The provision 
of medical services is left to the whim of insurance companies, patients 
are robbed of basic rights and insurance companies gain greater certainty 
over future profits.

Little is said about the public health system, with doctors employed and 
protected by the state and their patients also covered by the state. 
Instead of extending Medicare, and in line with its policy of allowing 
leaky ships to go under with all on board, the Government's strategy is to 
rearrange the deckchairs and then stand by as the Medicare system slowly 
sinks out of sight.