Our experience has led us to similar conclusions to you too. The public system has provided for the birth of our two children, a hernia operation for Buster Boy before he turned two, patching up Mrsdave after a fairly serious car accident and a vasectomy for me as the challenge presented by the Troll Princess became apparent. In none of these instances would private health insurance improved the service we received, however we would have been out of pocket for our premiums and the gap charged for the maternity stays and operations.

Health is an area where the profit motive can only reduce the quality of care. Most of the former mutual societies providing health care have been bought out by corporate interests who will always put put profit first. This is not a way to improve the quality of the health system.

BTW, Ambulance cover is a must, Mrsdave’s accident would have cost us around $8000 if we hadn’t had our $50 a year cover.

Most recently, I fractured my shoulder and hip, made my own way to hospital (I thought I’d just torn some muscles) was admitted through A&E and they operated on me as soon as they could. I’ve got 3 screws in my shoulder and a similar number in my leg along with a big plate thing (don’t know the technical terms). Apart from a private room and choice of Dr I’m not sure what benefits I’d have from private health insurance. Since I was interstate and didn’t know any of the Dr’s anyway it’s a bit of a moot point.

A couple of days after surgery one morning I asked for a transfer to my local hospital. By lunchtime they told me they’d obtained a bed for me in my local and were booking a flight but weren’t sure what time it would be. That night they came and told me the flight was booked for lunch time the following day. I was transferred from a road ambulance to the air ambulance and was in my home town a few hours later, sparing me a 9 or 10 hour road trip in the car wrestling with a wheelchair at every stop. Seems pretty good to me.

I don’t deny that there are problems with the public health service, but what do you expect when it’s been starved of funds and run like a business for the last however many years? It’s by no means perfect, the physio came to tell me I need physio 3 times a day but she’d be around once a day for example, but try what happened to me without insurance in any country other than this and see how you go. In the US you can have insurance and still be screwed if the hospital doesn’t accept that company.

Here’s hoping that Rudd ploughs a shitload of money into health and education. Frankly I don’t care if there’s no budget surplus, it’s our damn money to begin with so a big surplus like the Libs were so fond of crowing about simply means that either we’re getting taxed too much or they’re shortchanging public services (or, as it turns out a combination of the two!)

Al, there’s a great post by Possum Comitatus which addresses the impact of people dropping out of private health insurance, it’s not an unintended consequence, it’s part of reshaping the health system. It’s worth a read.

Realistically, short of Costello coming back, Turnbull will be the next leader of the Coalition, so his plan is working so far. Where would he have got if he followed his beliefs and signed up as an independent? The guy is playing the game to get where he wants to be. If we left politics to those who were grass root members, we would only ever get political results.

Many of the problems with the health system in Australia is the awful creeping ideology of managerialism. That has been entrenched over the last decade and needs to go. Management theories don’t work in health, education or welfare because they reduce everything to stats. Efficiency and quality are at opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to health, you need to have excess capacity in the system so that you can cope with unexpected demands.

Hopefully we will see an improvement in our health system over the next few years, the last decade certainly didn’t improve things.

How many people out there do you think will opt to take our path? I’m backing plenty.

And whilst I agree that the health system compared to other countries is reasonable, it needs help and while we have such a large surplus hanging around why not use it to improve health and education?

And finally, as you would know i have a few people around me that work for NSW Health. They would be happy to tell you how the health system is hardly “excellent”. In fact Mum will tell you it is barely competant.

I wouldn’t say though that opportunists don’t make good leaders. Look at Bob Hawke.