Surgeons Fees !

There is a parallel to be considered in this debate about limiting the fees that specialist doctors can charge for their services.  In the Soccer world, Messi and Ronaldo are probably the highest paid players on the planet and that is because they have a remarkable ability to kick goals.

The clubs that employ them are happy to shell out that money because with such stars on the field they win competitions. In fact the remarkable money paid to all soccer players is in direct relation to the fame and adoration they have achieved on the field of play.

In the field of medicine a very similar situation exists.   A few exalted surgeons gain fame as the " miracle doctors " who save lives because they have a skill that is superior to others.  That fame attracts patients who are prepared to pay the price asked for those skills and in so doing these doctors become unavailable to the general public.  This generates anger when people deprived of their services must make do with lesser surgeons.

It is simply the law of " supply and demand ".  Demand exceeds the number of gifted surgeons available and these few limit the number of operations they perform - and this results in the fees they charge moving ever higher. Such is a tenet of the capitalist society in which we live here in Australia.

But this capitalist society has a socialist undertone.  When we introduced Medicare the aim was to provide the benefits of medical care evenly across all strata's of society.  Its aim was to make the services of a doctor available to even the poorest and most distant in Australian society and treatment in public hospitals was to be without charge. That introduced a limitation.   The doctor who would perform those services would be one recruited and paid for by the state.

That is where medicine has arrived at now in Australia.  We have a vast public hospital system dispensing care alongside private hospitals where gifted surgeons operate on private patients and charge fees that far outweigh even the highest scale of private insurance cover.   The out of pocket cost is enormous but the benefit received is lives saved.   There is no doubt those surgeons skills are well above the average.

The danger is that this situation may destroy public confidence in the Medicare system and the benefits it delivers.  The public health system does involve waiting time for surgery and specialist services, but its success rate is well above expectations and it is being constantly improved. If we were to limit the fee doctors could charge we might send our best and brightest to serve in overseas countries and simply displace the private hospital system here which relieves medical pressure on the Medicare regime.

A doctor with exceptional skills has the right to charge a premium for his or her services.   We interfere with that at our peril.   Our mix of public and private medical services attracts patients from nearby countries and we are known as a country of medical excellence.   This mix of prices charged serves us well  !