'This is embarrassing': ACT still lags behind the nation for emergency department, elective surgery wait times

You and chewy didn’t answer my questions franky! The Canberra Liberals are considered a joke amongst their state and federal colleagues and the most conservative division of the party in the country. They are a party devoid of any policies and have been in opposition in the ACT for over two decades!

It must get a bit embarrassing and tiresome for you trying to protect the Canberra Liberals. Especially a party that blew up one of our only two public hospitals when they were last in government, not to mention what those ramifications were.

Left with only one public hospital and a run down publicly funded Catholic hospice offering limited services. Canberra Hospital has been pulling the weight ever since for both NSW and ACT patients.

We’re coming last of 7 jurisdictions in many heath care measures and getting worse. But clearly it’s all the opposition’s fault.

@franky22
Even worse, franky22 – there’s 8 jurisdictions (6 states and 2 territories) of which we are last. However, your point is still valid.

You been watching Sky News too? ha ha.

@JackD I have no idea what you are saying, however it appears to have nothing to do with ED waiting times.

Gooterz,
Jack D will do anything to avoid recognising the clear and immense failures in service delivery from the current government.

Ideology is far more important to him than outcomes as can clearly be seen by the above whataboutism word salad.

Maybe goggles and chewy can enlighten me and tell me what policies the Canberra Liberals will be bringing to the table. Not just health policies which take up 31% of the ACT’s budget but education, transport, housing, infrastructure, population growth, public transport, economic development, justice, climate change just to name a few. Msses Lee and Castley are expert at sniping from the sidelines but we have seen nothing from them on what the Canberra Liberals will bring to the table should their party win government at this year’s election.

Better still, maybe goggles and chewy can provide answers to the specific health questions I asked. Those policies which the party has scorned and continue to fight against including North Canberra and Canberra Hospital development, LGBTIQA+ rights, Indigenous health, safe schools, drug law reforms, voluntary assisted dying, mental health, contraceptive and sexual health services for women just to name a few? Ms Castley’s is deputy opposition leader but her motives continue to be questioned for her far right and anti-feminism principles.

How will these policies align with the party’s dominant, conservative and far right support base?

Jack,
Why bother talking policy when you clearly don’t care about it as evidenced by your constant excuses for the clear policy and service delivery failures of the existing government?

Particularly when your default position is whataboutism about the supposed “far right wing” of the opposition, instead of any kind of balanced assessment.

Jacl D’s mantra:
Progressives good, Conservatives bad. Ad nauseum.

@Capital Retro
I’m all for those who can afford to pay for health care doing so … however, I understand one of the major ‘numbers’ issues is that the ED is clogged up with people who can’t afford to pay to see a GP so they use the ‘free service instead’.

It’ll solve the ‘numbers’ problem if they charge, but it would also mean these people would have access to no health services whatsoever, which may not be the outcome the health system is seeking.

Hi CR,
When you are admitted into The Canberra Hospital, they’ll ask if you have Private Insurance. If you have been before, those records will already be on file.

Being a Public Hospital, you are automatically booked-in as a Public Patient and your care in the Hospital is covered by Medicare (paid for by you, through your taxes).

What sometimes happens is that someone will chase you down and ask is you’ll sign some forms, to enable the Hospital to charge your Health Fund for your admission. They try and shame you into it. – if the Private Health Fund pays, it helps us out with our funding.

You are under no obligation to sign those forms.

It will make no difference to your care. You won’t have a choice of doctor, you won’t get a Private room etc.

I find that chasing down those with Private Insurance disgraceful.

All this practice does is push the cost of our Private Insurance 🤔.

People are not expecting free healthcare. They are expecting to be able access a service they have paid for. Most people pay a Medicare Levy (some of us have paid it for 40 years). And before you claim people do anything to minimise their taxes, that simply doesn’t happen, only those with investments or who are self employed can do that easily – wage earners have almost capacity to avoid the Medicare Levy. The promise when it was introduced was the right to be able to access health care when you need it and not just when you can afford it. Maybe the funding formula needs work, but it is wrong to suggest people are looking for freebies.

Megsy,
The problem with your statement is that the Medicare levy does not remotely come close to the about spent on health care through Medicare, so even if we all paid a similar amount, then we aren’t covering it through that payment, the rest being serviced through general revenue.

Well that also comes from taxation you might say, but the level of access to those services does not match up with taxation payments, in fact there’s a more inverse relationship.

Now, I think thats a good thing having a universal health care system, but it’s most certainly not a user pays one, pretty much the opposite.

The current Medicare levy is pitiful megsy! The levy is based on a set percentage of 2% across all income levels above $23,000, or $33,000 for seniors and pensioners. The significant shortfall is paid out of general government expenditure.

Medicare was originally set up in the 1970s to be a publicly funded universal health care insurance scheme operated by the then Social Security Department. It funded most primary health care services. It was a scheme set up to benefit all Australian citizens and permanent residents most in need across most services. It has been scorned, undermined and watered down by successive conservative governments since it was implemented with attempts to abolish it.

Australia’s taxation system needs a total overhaul, particularly NDIS and Medicare which currently benefits the wealthy.

This Labor government should be returning NDIS and Medicare to their rightful place in history and what they were originally intended to be, insurance schemes that benefited all Australians, not just the wealthy and those who seek to rort!

The Medicare levy applies only to taxable income, not all income. I agree that the NDIS is being rorted by the wealthy though.

Jack D. Medicare started in 1984 (not the 70s – that was the old Medibank). I’m not disputing the funding model is not working and needs an overhaul (its interesting that rebates haven’t changed in over a decade, while everyone’s contribution has as a result of indexation of wages).

I was challenging Capital Retro’s claim people were looking for free health care. That is not so and it is unhelpful to try to reduce the debate to that level. Most people actually pay more than they get back. For example, if your income is between 50K & 100K (where most people fall), you will pay between $1,000 & $2,000 a year. If you only see a doctor a couple of times a year, then you have well and truly paid for it.

Yes, the problem comes when people need more serious care than just a GP, but some of the problems with emergency department wait times and/or unmanaged health conditions deteriorating to needing hospital care are happening because people cannot afford to see a GP (despite paying $1-2K per year for the right to do so).

I agree with all of your comments megsy.
The Medicare scheme had its incarnation under the Whitlam government in 1975 as “Medibank”. The Fraser government attempted to abolish the scheme and it was reinstated by the Hawke government in the mid 80s under the name “Medicare”.
Medibank was privatised by the Abbott government in 2014.

Megsy,
It’s a bit meaningless to say most people pay more than they get back on Medicare in any one individual year. It’s an insurance scheme, it wouldn’t work if that wasn’t the case.

But the overall cost of Medicare to the budget is around $2k per adult each year and the total health system around $5k per year.

The median taxable income is only around $60k per year ($1.2k Medicare levy). That amount of Medicare levy doesn’t remotely come close to funding the proportion of Medicare let alone the health system as a whole. And half of all taxpayers are paying even less.

NDIS and Medicare benefits the wealthy, how so

They are not means tested.

@Capital Retro
But, the wealthy also have to pay the Medicare levy (admittedly on their ‘declared, not actual, income’) unless they opt for private health cover – which (stretching it a little) is a kind of means testing. Have to defer to you on NDIS as I know nothing about it or the funding model.

A couple of posts have inferred that the “wealthy” arrange their financial affairs so they don’t have to pay any levies. That’s called “tax minimization” not “tax avoidance”.

It would be good if someone well informed on the subject (chewy is good on this matter) could tell us how many “wealthies” actually pay the default Medicare levy in lieu of not getting private health cover.

JS, everyone gets an income in this country. Even the homeless get the full taxpayer welfare that is available to them. How income is spent is the problem. The ones you claim “cannot afford to pay” actually can pay but they choose to prioritize other things instead like cigarettes, a packet of which now costs more than the net price for a doctor’s consultation. Many buy drugs first. Taxpayers fund the health system which is today made up of very well paid “health professionals”, very few of which care for the best outcome for any social group.

Capital Retro,
Everyone pays the Medicare Levy, it is 2% of taxable income.

The Medicare Levy Surcharge is on top of that and very few wealthy people pay it because you only need basic Health Insurance to avoid it. No brainer to make sure you don’t get stung with further tax for no benefit.

@Capital Retro
“The ones you claim “cannot afford to pay” actually can pay but they choose to prioritize other things instead like cigarettes, a packet of which now costs more than the net price for a doctor’s consultation. Many buy drugs first.”
Wow – and you wonder why you get no respect, when you come up with sanctimonious and judgmental generalisations like that.

You are repeating what I have already said. So, how many actually pay the Levy surcharge?
Heath Insurance doesn’t cover the cost associated with a GP consultation by the way and not “everybody” pays the levy, in fact that a lot of the people that seek free treatment at TCH are under the taxable income threshold.

Capital Retro,
around 10-15% of people liable pay the Medicare Levy Surcharge, for a number of reasons but mostly because they don’t care or don’t know about the extra tax cost they pay rather than getting cheaper insurance.
https://melbourneinstitute.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/4682822/wp2023n08.pdf

“and not “everybody” pays the levy”

Everyone pays the levy based on their taxable income and associated reduction/exemption thresholds. Your other claims about people avoiding doctors fees and wanting to charge at the TCH are pretty nonsensical and would actually result in higher health related costs in the longterm.

Hey JS, I think you should turn off your device and get out in the real world for a change.

Respect, what’s that?

@Capital Retro
Oh I get out into the real world quite a bit, CR, it’s how I know, unlike you, that not everyone who is currently suffering financial hardship and can’t afford to go to the doctor, is a cigarette smoking, drug taking wastrel – I would hazard a guess that a large portion are hard working but low paid people who are struggling to get by on what they earn.

Respect, CR? Well if you decided to forego posting falsehoods and comments denigrating people in financial hardship, you never know, you may actually find, from someone out there, what respect is.

My information is that they have never had resident eye surgeons. At one stage they were flying them in but the ED department didn’t like being told to what to do by out of towners so they don’t come anymore.

There are private eye hospitals in Canberra that handle surgeries and TCH have referred people I know to them – can’t see why they would send you to Sydney.

would have likely referred Kalo to Sydney for public eye surgery as the out-of-pocket expenses for private eye surgeries is quite high.

What is not well understood is that eye surgeons only do certain parts of the eye, not all of it.

My detached retina experience, albeit 23 years ago, was much the same. Going to Sydney Eye Hospital was recommended to me on the basis of you’re better off getting surgery done by a person who does it umpteen times a week versus one who does it a couple of times a month. I went to Calvary on the Saturday morning, got told to go to Sydney which I did Saturday afternoon and was operated on Sunday morning. My eye still works fine all these years later.

I think you will find that the reality is exactly the opposite, Elf.

It’s almost as if they can’t wait to discharge people and this can be fatal for people who have had surgery as blood clotting can occur and a pulmonary embolism can result. I have lost two friends in the last five years after this happened. The partner of one of the victims pleaded with the hospital beforehand not to discharge him just two days after surgery.