Health care in Australia

Health care in Australia is provided by both private and government institutions. The subject is often debated and continues to be a political issue as services are often inadequately facilitated. The Minister for Health and Ageing, Tony Abbott administers national health policy.

National health policy
Following the global trend, services have been moving from a mostly publicly-funded health care model to a mixed market with a growing health care industry responsible for health care management. Essentially this has been driven by two-tier health care policy where payment methods have been encouraged via third party insurers who charge an annual fee to cover potential heath care costs, from the fee free model based bulk billing service by a general practitioner.

Programs
The federal government agency Medicare Australia is responsible for administering programs like the universal health care-based Medicare and medicine subsidies under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.

The federal government provides a health care card to low income earners that entitles the holder to reduced costs for some services such as dental and eye-wear.

The Australian Organ Donor Register is also maintained by the federal government.

Issues
Cigarette smoking is the largest preventable cause of death and disease in Australia. State governments are responsible for managing hospitals and community health care centres. Services across the country have been routinely criticised for lengthy waiting times in emergency rooms and for non-life threatening operations. Many parts of remote and rural Australia suffer from a shortage of doctors and health care services, so the federal government started the Medical Rural Bonded Scheme to encourage medical practitioners to settle in rural areas.

The quality of aged care is another problem in some parts of the country.

Peak bodies

 * Australian Medical Association
 * Royal Australian College of General Practitioners