From: http://tinyurl.com/oej3gx Medicare may be 'doomed in five years' 10:57 AEST Wed Jun 3 2009 Free public healthcare in Australia may disappear in the next five years and be replaced by a US-style system, NSW Health director-general Debora Picone says. "We are really on the edge of losing the universal healthcare system that this country has," Professor Picone told News Ltd. "I would have (previously) said we'd had 10 years to run. "It's now looking like we've got five years to run because the cost escalations are so significant and we haven't prepared ourselves." Prof Picone and NSW Health Minister John Della Bosca are working on a plan to pool all state and federal funding in a move to slash red tape and eliminate overlap, News Ltd says. The $13.2 billion state hospital budget would be integrated with commonwealth funding for Medicare, the pharmaceutical benefits scheme and aged care. Mr Della Bosca said on Tuesday the overhaul was also aimed at eliminating cost and blame shifting between the federal and state governments. "What we need is to improve the relationship between the various parts of the health system, make sure it works better together, and make sure of course that we stop the nonsense of cost shifting and game playing that's been happening for generations now," he told Fairfax Radio Network. Mr Della Bosca will be holding a media conference on the issue at 10.15am (AEST) on Wednesday. --

※ 发信站: 批踢踢实业坊(ptt.cc) ◆ From: 113.61.171.30