Yahoo Finance Should Medicare be aborted in favour of mandatory private health cover?
Mark Fitzgibbon, the head of one of Australia’s biggest health fund, NIB, has called on the government’s free healthcare system to be scrapped and to make private health insurance mandatory instead.
In an opinion piece published in the AFR on Tuesday, the NIB managing director proposed for the current public healthcare system to be replaced with a government-subsidised private healthcare sector.
The burden of paying for healthcare should be shifted onto those who can afford it, according to Fitzgibbon.
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“A sensible policy approach would be to make private health insurance compulsory for all Australians with taxation devoted to subsidising the premiums for those who would otherwise be left behind,” he wrote.
“That is, high income earners would at one end of the scale pay the entire premium while at the other, those with low income would be fully subsidised.”
Fitzgibbon claimed his proposal would address the crisis facing the health insurance industry that comes from an ageing population and the increasing dependence of Australian retirees to younger taxpayers.
Fitzgibbon’s op-ed comes off the back of a report by the Grattan Institute that described our current health system as “muddled”, “riddled with inconsistencies and perverse incentives”, and being abandoned by young people as a result.
“Absolutely committed to Medicare”: Health minister
Will the government consider the proposal?
Federal health minister Greg Hunt was unequivocal and said the Coalition was “committed to (Medicare) for life, forever”.
Speaking to reporters in Canberra, he said: “I did see one comment [on Tuesday] questioning Medicare, and I have to say clearly and categorically that we reject that proposition: clearly, categorically and absolutely.”
“But equally, we’re committed to private health insurance. Both of those elements are part of the model that best serves Australians.”
Labor also threw its support behind Medicare, which shadow health minister Chris Bowen called the “key to our health system”.
"Labor rejects any suggestion to abolish Medicare and will resist this vigorously. Nor will we support any suggestion to make private health insurance compulsory,” said Bowen.
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