Private health insurance — preying on fear
By Cliff Baxter
Private hospitals and private insurance are on the nose for many Australians. Membership of private funds is declining, and complaints about private hospitals such as Mayne Nickless' Port Macquarie private hospital, which is draining the Carr government of precious public health money, are increasing.
The federal government, "unable" to find dollars to maintain the public health system, has nevertheless found billions for its campaign to entice, coerce and now terrify people into buying private health insurance.
The most recent and most appalling part of this campaign is the government's TV and newspaper advertisements which warn those without private health insurance that they will be stuck in the "slow lane" of treatment in the public hospital system.
The TV ad shows families travelling down a freeway on hospital trolleys, meeting a traffic jam and then encountering road signs marked "private insurance", which direct them into an express lane.
The ad's message, in the words of health minister Dr Michael Wooldridge, is, "There is very strong anecdotal evidence when you talk to doctors that people do actually get treatment faster if they have private health cover".
The ad has outraged some members of the medical profession. The Doctors Reform Society said that Wooldridge's dumping on the public health system and attempts to terrify millions of people into private health insurance were "dishonourable, even shameful".
DRS president Dr Con Costa said: "This is a flagrant breach of the Hippocratic Oath by a doctor, apart from being a brutal threat to the peace of mind of Australian citizens.
"As a doctor he [Wooldridge] undertook to treat all patients equally, irrespective of their ability to pay. He is now publicly claiming that richer patients will be safer than others. If this were the case, it would be entirely due to his government's starving the public system.
"Vulnerable Australians are not being defended when they are sick. The government and the health minister are apparently satisfied to sell off and destroy one of the best systems in the world by yielding to private corporations wanting profits from people's suffering".