Tag Archive for 'funding'

So, how about that hospitals plan?

Published
by
Mark
1 week, 5 days ago
in Education, Government, Health, Industrial Relations, Media, Policy, Politics and Polls
. 7 Comments

Tony Abbott’s performance in question time today, and the timing of his parental leave thought bubble more generally, suggest that his major imperative was to switch the topic of debate from health. That’s despite the Coalition running a very active scare campaign about hospital closures in the bush, but it’s probably because of the polling on Rudd’s initiative. I suspect also that it wouldn’t be going out too far on a limb to venture a modest prediction that that Labor might be headed for an uptick in the polls.

Some Coalition MPs have suggested that this plan came about so suddenly because Abbott had become privy to private party polling.

I strongly suspect that the Labor Party might have had a bit of a turnaround – perhaps related to the National Curriculum and health, and Abbott might be responding to that. It could also explain why he felt he had to release some ‘positive policy’. It could well be that his negativism has had an impact; I note that Labor Ministers have been reiterating the ‘Senate obstructionism’ line again this morning.

In short, on where the parties actually stand, one shouldn’t believe what one reads in The Australian.

Meanwhile, whether or not Abbott makes health a focus of his parliamentary attack, the Premiers continue to ponder the National Health and Hospitals Network. Kevin Rudd has wrought his own ambush, confident that there’s no political skin to be lost picking a fight with the states on this battleground. But that doesn’t mean that some of the Premiers haven’t been posing some good questions – interestingly, probably more from Kristina Kenneally than John Brumby.

And while the headline politics might have been the primary focus of media attention, some good work continues to be done on analysing the policy itself. I’ve posted some salient links over the fold. Continue reading ‘So, how about that hospitals plan?’

Health and hospitals and the polls

Published
by
Mark
2 weeks ago
in Health and Polls
. 8 Comments

We’ve had close to a week of public debate on Kevin Rudd’s health and hospitals plan, and today’s Nielsen poll shows resounding majorities among every demographic and voters of all parties for the proposition that the Commonwealth should take more responsibility for funding hospitals. Over the fold, I’ve borrowed a table from Possum to illustrate the results.

What should be of most concern to the Opposition is the very large number of their own voters who support such a policy. It might, of course, be objected that support is soft, but that ignores the fact that this plan was launched on the basis of reinforcing well entrenched public attitudes about the failures of the states in hospital management; attitudes Tony Abbott would have been well aware of when he frequently proposed a Commonwealth takeover as Health Minister.

No doubt it will also be claimed that support will ebb, as with the ETS (though it still has majority approval). But the introduction and selling of this plan has been very different – a high profile announcement, followed by a media blitz – much more akin to a budget. And interest groups which will resonate positively with public opinion – doctors, nurses, have reacted supportively.

Continue reading ‘Health and hospitals and the polls’

Rudd’s health policy

Published
by
Mark
2 weeks, 5 days ago
in Federal Elections, Government, Health and Politics
. 63 Comments

Kevin Rudd has released his health policy at the National Press Club.

Essentially, it encompasses a phased takeover of responsibility for activity based hospital funding by the Commonwealth, with 30% of GST revenue to be diverted directly to hospitals. Funding would flow to individual hospitals, with local authorities being funded to treat individual patients, and the establishment of national standards of care.

Primary health care will become the sole responsibility of the Commonwealth.

Politically, it buys the Commonwealth a possible fight with the largely unpopular state governments, and appears to short circuit the state health departments, leaving them with residual functions for the less glamorous administrative functions of hospital systems. It also incorporates the local focus Tony Abbott has championed, with flexibility for clincal and funding decisions to be made at hospital or regional level. The Commonwealth would become, in effect, a regulatory and activity based funding body, rather than ‘taking over’ hospitals, but the threat of a referendum remains.

Subsequent announcements between now and the election will focus on extra beds, doctor and nurse training, support for GPs, and the introduction of electronic patient record monitoring.

The AMA is supportive; the Coalition opposed.

Detail of the National Health and Hospitals Network Plan can be found here.

Update: Bernard Keane observes at The Stump that the plan comes with a snappy slogan – “funded nationally, run locally”.

Update: Melissa Sweet analyses the announcement at Croakey.

Update: The transcript of Kevin Rudd’s Q&A at the Press Club is now available here.

Let’s ban postmodernism!

Published
by
Mark
1 year, 4 months ago
in Culture, Film, TV, Video etc and Politics
. 357 Comments

I think it was klaus k who once suggested on this blog that we should completely eschew the word “postmodernism”, so vacuous and meaningless has it become. That seems a proposal worth reviving when you read an astonishing take on the ABC’s decision to reallocate resources away from specialist Radio National programs, particularly the Religion Report.

The questions facing mankind are, essentially, the same as they have always been: the age-old questions about what is good, true and beautiful. How do we identify those characteristics in our own and others’ behaviour? How do we achieve them in our lives?

Inevitably, we will never answer them validly if – confusing the medium with the message, to put it in Marshall McLuhan’s discredited formula – we confuse the garments for the person, the cover for the book.

Apparently, the ABC’s remit is to pose (or answer?) eternal questions, and any management decision about Radio National demonstrates “relativism” and that “they hate religion”.

I’m actually not a huge fan of Stephen Crittenden’s, but there can be no doubt that discussing programming decisions in this fashion is, well, just demented. Continue reading ‘Let’s ban postmodernism!’

Miracle cure for trachoma found by the Australian Govt Intervention in the NT

Published
by
tigtog
1 year, 7 months ago
in Disasters, Health, Indigenous, Medicine and Poverty
. 44 Comments

I’m not quite sure what it was, but there must have been one, because the AGI health checks on indigenous children in the NT last year did not record a single case. (Update: this claim of zero cases of trachoma recorded, taken from the post linked to below, has been contradicted, although the rate recorded is still extraordinarily low.)

Fred Hollows must be causing a scene around the Pearly Gates in the way he’s kicking himself for missing such a simple and effective solution to a common cause of blindness that was a special concern to him due to Australia’s central desert regions having the highest incidence of trachoma in the world.

The crucial ingredient in miraculously eradicating trachoma appears to be (drumroll) the recruitment primarily of recently-graduated doctors from urban and coastal regions (who’d never seen a case of trachoma before) to do all the health checks in a region where the condition is endemic. Voila! No cases of trachoma recorded! The previous incidence rate of 45% reduced to zero in one strike! Marvellous (and who knows what other medical conditions may also have been eradicated by this daring initiative?). Think of all the funding for blindness programs that can now be re-allocated because there are no more cases of trachoma in the central desert!

I suspect that this miraculous eradication method could quite possibly be effectively adapted elsewhere. What say you?

Update: some of you need your sarcasm meters recalibrated. Yes, the “miracle cure” is pure snark.