Medicare Policy: History, Changes, And Effects On Welfare System And People

SOC810 Developing Social Policy

Discussion

Medicare policy can be illustrated as the plans and the decisions that are generally undertaken towards the achievement of the specific health care related targets within the society. The system of the health in the country of Australia is generally recognized as one of the best OECD; Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (McClelland & Smyth, 2014). Commonly known as the Medicare policy, the mandatory insurance scheme for the public in the country of Australia generally provide some of the effective health care coverage to the citizens, the refugees and the permanent residents of the country. The Medicare policy in the country of Australia is generally funded via the taxation as well as the levy. According to the Australian governmental budget, these health care and the Medicare policy serves as the funding revenue for the medicare system and the public hospitality funding for the inhabitants of the Australia. The assignment focuses on the history and the origin of the health and the Medicare policy in Australia together with the noted and the essential changes of the policy by the government through out the times. The essay explains the effects of the Medicare policy of Australia over the welfare system and the people of the country with a critical analysis and a reflection of the topic.

History of Medicare policy

The publicly funded universal health care system in Australia, the Medicare policy serves as the primary and the basic funder of the health care system in the country of Australia generally operated by department of human services (Md. Emdadul Hoque et al., 2018). The development and the origin of the Medicare policy were primary for the welfare of the citizens of the country. The policy aimed towards the entitlement of the rebate in case of treatments from the medical practitioner, nurse practitioners allied health professionals. The policy was initially developed so that the citizens of the country get free treatments in the public hospitals. Initially developed and introduced in the year 1975, the Medicare policy of Australia as Medibank by Whitlam Government, this was only limited to the paying customers (Carson & Kerr 2014). The policy was reintroduced and improved by Hawke as the universal health care in the year 1984 as Medicare.

The history of the formation of the Medicare policy follows back to the constitutional framework. Inserted by the referendum of 1946, section 51 of the common wealth constitution gave the power to the federal parliament subjected to the decision of the constitution for initiating and introduction of the laws with respect to the various health care facilities. These includes provision of maternity, pension of the widows, benefits of the hospital due to sickness, the endowment of the children and the benefits to the students and the allowances of the needy families in Australia (Arthurson, 2012). Followed by the end of the World War II, the Medicare policy was developed for the increase in the number of the coverage of the Australian towards the health insurance plans. In the year of early 1970s, a large number of the Australian population lacked the coverage of the health care policy and the free check up and the Medicare facilities. Australian families specifically with a very low rate of income lacked the coverage and free public health care system.

History of Medicare policy

Since the year 1999, there have been some of the notable changes in the Medicare policy of the country by the government of Australia. Reports from the heath camps regarding the discrimination and the lack of the availability of the benefits of the policy of Medicare towards the low income group of people of the Australian community led the government of Queensland of Australia take some of the rapid reactions towards this mandatory universal health care policy. The public health care plan and the Medicare policy were supplemented by the rebate of the private health insurance. From the new and the improved policy scheme, the government of the country agreed towards the funding of 31% of any of the insurance in the connection to the universal and the public health care system that covers and includes the individuals eligible for the Medicare policy scheme (Blank, Burau & Kuhlmann, 2017). The changes and the alteration by the government of the country included these rebates which served as the major components of the universal commonwealth health budget that included 43% of the total budget. The new and the improved program estimated the cost of $4 billion which comprised around 20% of the annual budget. The two of the major reason regarding the detailed alteration of the health policy in Australia are the theme of the current and the increasing prediction of the future failures of the system of health care. The second includes the advancement in the scientific and the medical fields that made some of the breakthroughs saving and improving the lives of Australians.

Some of the basic and the common stories in relation to the change in the health care policy or the Medicare policy by the government included brink of the collapse, the absence and the lack of the public hospitals towards coping with the demands, the shortage of the professionals of the health care and threaten of the entire health system by the ongoing changes in the demographics (Eckermann, Sheridan & Ivers, 2016). Although the initial responsibility of the Australian colonial government was only the responsibility towards health and health care, the changes in the Medicare policy furthermore depicted a mixture of the responsibilities for the context of the health  care across the three levels of the government namely the commonwealth, state or the territory and the local. Further changes included dentistry which was initially not included in the Medicare (Duckett & Willcox, 2015). Some of the changes in the health care system included in the Medicare policy of Australia included live time health coverage, introduction of the Medicare plus scheme, establishment of the national indigenous health equity commission and the national pricing agency.

To summarize, some of the important changes in the Medicare policy includes:

Changes

Time frame

Introduction of the national health services along with the Britain lines Amendment in the constitution Scheme in relation to the pharmaceutical benefits Focus on the living conditions, nutrition and housing Introduction of voluntary insurance Introduction of Medibank Introduction of community health care program Introduction of private health insurance rebate Introduction of lifetime health cover Introduction of Medicare plus with safety net payments, concession to patients and bulk billing Development and review of national indigenous health equity commission and national health and hospital reforms Establishment of national pricing agency, funding pool and preventive health agency.

After 1940s 1946 1949 Post World War II 1950-72 1972-75 1983 1996-98 1999 2004 2008 2010-13

The Medicare policy basically aims towards the well being and the process of the welfare for the individuals in the Australia (Javanparast et al., 2015). The struggles over the health policy in relation to the Medicare policy and the health care insurance tend to involve the conflicts among the interest groups and the strains towards the structures and the financial arrangements. Furthermore the attitudes to the health changes and the expectations of the Australians over the Medicare policy have upgraded through out the years. With the steady rising in the level of the health care expenses in the Australia, this Medicare policy introduced universal and effective insurance of health for the Australians to deal with situations of bulk billing and out of pocket expenditures. One of the most improvement and the effect of the wellbeing of this policy has been towards the health care system of the aboriginal people who used to have very less access to the services of the primary health care (Duckett, 2018). The policy became a statutory national entity with the co-operation with the Australian National Preventive Health Agency influencing the changing environment of the welfare and the health of the people of Australia.

Medicare policy and changes of government

Good

In connection to the welfare system and the wellbeing of the people of Australia, the main motive behind the introduction and the improvement of the Medicare policy is to provide benefits to the ageing population, the needy group of people, the aboriginals and the children since the policy provided more complicated and expensive treatments to them (Eckermann & Sheridan, 2016). Some of the good effects of the policy include the availability of the facilities, the well eng of the health of the people of Australia. The policy furthermore helps in the improvement of the efficiency and the level out of the variations in the process of the hospitals in Australia, thus initiating some of the benefits to the people of the country (Flood & Thomas, 2018).

Apart from all the good effects of the Medicare on the people of the country, some of the bad effects include the excessive financial cost that the individuals have to bear on a mandatory basis for the welfare system in the Medicare policy in Australia. Furthermore the introduction of the Medicare policy in the country made the people believe in some of the myths that they are not receiving proper medical facilities, good treatment and care for having Medicare card as compared to the people having private insurance. The Medicare policy furthermore enabled some of the community of people to avoid going to see the doctor for the tension of excessive payments as they feel that Medicare card holders need to pay more than the people having private insurance facilities.

Conclusion

Thus it can be concluded that the main aim of the welfare system and the Medicare policy appeared to be the means towards the achievement of health benefits for all the individuals of Australia. Medicare policy provides some of the effective health care coverage to the citizens, the refugees and the permanent residents of the country. The assignment highlights on the origin of the health and the Medicare policy in Australia together with the noted and the essential changes of the policy by the government throughout the times and its impact on the people of Australia.

References

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Blank, R., Burau, V., & Kuhlmann, E. (2017). Comparative health policy. Macmillan International Higher Education.

Carson, E., & Kerr. L. (2014). Australian Social Policy and the Human Services. Port Melbourne: Cambridge University Press.

Duckett, S. (2018). Expanding the breadth of Medicare: learning from Australia. Health Economics, Policy and Law, 1-25.

Duckett, S., & Willcox, S. (2015). The Australian health care system (No. Ed. 5). Oxford University Press.

Eckermann, S., & Sheridan, L. (2016). Supporting medicare health, equity and efficiency in australia: policies undermining bulk billing need to be scrapped. Applied health economics and health policy, 14(5), 511-514.

Eckermann, S., Sheridan, L., & Ivers, R. (2016). Which direction should Australian health system reform be heading?. Australian and New Zealand journal of public health, 40(1), 7-9.

Flood, C. M., & Thomas, B. (2018). A successful Charter challenge to medicare? Policy options for Canadian provincial governments. Health Economics, Policy and Law, 1-17.

Javanparast, S., Baum, F., Barton, E., Freeman, T., Lawless, A., Fuller, J., … & Kidd, M. R. (2015). Medicare Local–Local Health Network partnerships in South Australia: lessons for Primary Health Networks. Medical Journal of Australia, 203(5), 219-219.

McClelland, A., & Smyth, P. (Eds.) (2014). Social policy in Australia: Understanding for action, (3^rd ed.). South Melbourne, Victoria: Oxford Uni Press.

Md. Emdadul Hoque, D., Ruseckaite, R., Lorgelly, P., McNeil, J. J., & Evans, S. M. (2018). Cross-sectional study of characteristics of clinical registries in Australia: a resource for clinicians and policy makers. International Journal for Quality in Health Care, 30(3), 192-199.