Access to health care is a right should be a referendum
by Joe Toscano Wednesday October 06, 2004 at 10:31 PM
Anarchist Age Weekly Review No 613

It's good to see that the Federal Labor Opposition has adopted the Gold Medicare Card for people over 75, one of Defend and Extend Medicare's major recommendations as their central re-election policy. The thinking behind Defend and Extend Medicare's strategy and policy initiatives is based on equity. The group was formed around one principle, that access to health care should be a right not a charity or a luxury. The health care initiatives that have been implemented by the Howard government over the past 9 years have destroyed what little equity has existed in Australia in accessing the health care delivery system.

The Howard government has created a two-tier user payer health care delivery system that is heavily skewed to publicly subsidise the health care costs of the richest Australians at the expense of the rest of the community and the public hospital sector. Howard's carping about freedom of choice is directly related to the disposable income people have at their fingertips. The more people earn, the greater the amount of choice they have. The introduction of Medibank in 1974 allowed all Australians, irrespective of where they lived, how much they earned and how sick they were, access to both the out of hospital private and public health sector.

The introduction of a Medicare Gold Card for Australians over 75 years of age, a policy initiative that was initially proposed by Defend and Extend Medicare over a year ago and that has been aired in a number or pre-selection public forums by Dr. Joseph Toscano Joint National Convenor of Defend and Extend Medicare, puts choice and equity back on the political and social agenda.

Australians 75 years and over will, if Labor is elected into office on the 9th of October, be able to access both public and private hospital networks irrespective of how much disposable income they have. Their admission to both the public and private hospital network will be determined on the basis of need, not on the amount of disposable income they have. Access to the health care delivery system should be a right that everybody living in this country should enjoy.

Parliament and the major political parties should not have the power to turn the tap on and off to suit their short term electoral strategies. The idea that access to health care is a right that should be enjoyed by all Australians should be enshrined in the Australian Constitution.

At the next Federal election in 2007, the question that access to health care is a right should be put to the Australian people in a referendum. If the referendum is successful, no future Australian government will be able to deny citizens access to the health care delivery system because of their geographical location, how much they earn or how sick they are.

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