Difficult task ahead for reforming health

Sussan Ley launched a series of major reviews of health spending programs. The proposals from these reviews are now on the table, and Jim Gillespie (University of Sydney) argues that Greg Hunt will have a series of difficult tasks in implementation.

Conditions in offshore detention centres are inhumane, degrading and pose life-threatening risks

Karen Zwi (University of NSW) and Nicholas Talley (University of Newcastle) explain in The Conversation the health ramifications of Australia's refugee policy and the disturbing litany of delays, poor judgement, ill-informed decisions and above all, the serious consequences of a detention system that neglects warnings and fails to heed clinical advice.

Turnbull government continues the traditional erratic approach of the Commonwealth to hospital funding

Stephen Duckett (Grattan Institute) explains in The Conversation the erratic behaviour of the Commonwealth over several decades in funding the state hospital system.

Government policy, not consumer behaviour, is driving rising Medicare costs

Stephen Duckett (Grattan Institute) writes in The Conversation that Medicare expenditure was presented in the 2014 Budget as part of the government’s mantra of a “debt and deficit disaster”, and massaged to create maximum shock and awe. The minister’s numbers did not adjust either for population growth or inflation. Furthermore, of the $325 real increase in MBS spending per head since 1993-94, all but $74 has been the result of explicit government decisions.