The Federal government plan to have Medicare funded elective surgery performed in private hospitals raises some interesting questions.
What standard of service will apply ? The people who pay for health insurance expect a little luxury when they need to go to hospital. If public patients are enjoying exactly the same standard of care, then surely this must be a great turn-off - and result in some people dropping their private insurance cover.
What criteria dictates bed availability ? Will this mean a privately insured patient will be shunted to the end of the queue because a public patient had an urgent and painful need of attention ? The main purpose of taking out health insurance was to guarantee prompt attention rather than languish in a long public health queue.
The government will spend fifty billion dollars bringing public patients into private hospitals for Medicare funded elective surgery - but this will not start until July 1, 2012.
A question that needs to be answered is why tossing another fifty billion dollars at the public system would not achieve exactly the same result ?
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