Today I draw attention to two “must read” articles which rather contradict the government’s claims about Medicare.

The first is by Glen Murray. Like Glen’s graph? Click the graph to read Glen’s full analysis, I guarantee you will find it very interesting!

The second article is by Catherine King, published in The Guardian. Catherine refers to a “GP tax”, which I would argue with. We need to keep very clear this was a reduction in insurance cover, NOT a tax. The Medicare rebate is the payout of OUR insurance which we pay an insurance premium for, the Medicare levy!

That aside, Catherine provides very good evidence that there is no reason to panic: Medicare isn’t sending Australia to the poor-house.

The report found total spending on health goods and services in Australia was just 1.5% higher for the year. When population growth is taken into account, average annual health spending of $6,430 per person was actually down in real terms.

And that is total health spending. The Commonwealth’s health spending in 2012-13 actually fell by 2.4% in real terms.

In addition to the above articles, I noticed an interesting tweet the other day. Australia is forecast to be the world’s 13th largest economy in 2015, yet we are only 0.3% of the world’s population. But we can’t afford universal health or education?  Why do feel as if there is some wool being pulled over people’s eyes?

You can validate this on the Australian Trade Commission website.

Related:

Open letter to Sussan Ley on Medicare changes