SAMANTHA HAWLEY: Doctor Blewett says he's long argued for a single hospital funding pool and the payment to hospitals on a per patient basis.it's gonna cost us... surprise, surprise...
NEAL BLEWETT: It removes what is one of the great weaknesses of the system. That is the buck passing between the states and the Commonwealth.
SAMANTHA HAWLEY: It's very close, of course, this announcement to the next election, what are the chances that we'll see any tangible changes before we actually go to the polls?
TONY EASTLEY: Crucial to the Prime Minister's health reform is funding and there are reports this morning his scheme involves the states and territories surrendering a slice of their current GST revenue.and Joe Hockey points out...
Already he's admitted he's gearing up for a fight and he may ''cop a bit of stick'' for his health reform agenda.
He's certainly kept the details close to his chest. The states and territories haven't been briefed and federal Cabinet is meeting in Canberra this morning to sign off on the blueprint.
JOE HOCKEY: Well the first question that needs to be asked today is where is Kevin Rudd getting the money from? He's running deficit budgets, which are putting upward pressure on interest rates.Did I hear a figure today of $8B? Joe's right. Where is this coming from? *
He's got a huge tax review in the form of Henry coming and obviously he's got to service his debt. So where is this magic pool of money that Kevin Rudd says is a great substitute for the black hole in the health system? Where's it coming from?
All Anna Bligh can say about it is that the money from Queensland should stay in Queensland... it'll be interesting if Queensland needs more money than is raised from Queensland...
*Update
Okay, Rudd's going to strip the states of $50B to fund the hospitals. After the batt and school hall debacles how are the hospitals going to be?
6 comments:
Costello has a good article in the Age today where he asks, "Where will the commonwealth get the people to run these hospitals for them? Answer - they will recruit exactly the same people who are running them today (and supposedly stuffing them up). How will that fix anything?"
And he's right. I worked for a government department which was "restructured" several times with a view to "bringing in new blood from the private sector". The same old faces got the jobs each time, albeit at much higher pay after every restructure. Didn't do a damned thing to fix anything.
We struggled through as much as we could bear of Mr Rudd's National Press Club address on hospitals today.
After watching about 6 minutes of his obfuscations, I fast-forwarded to questions in the vain hope that the journalists would be able to actually get some facts out him.
You know something? As he stepped up to the plate, just in time to stop the buck, frankly, he did not answer the journalists' questions.
Just like Question Time in parliament.
A few days ago he added a new noun to the English language: "announceable". I knew it was a noun because he said "an announceable".
Today, he has again increased our vocabulary, this time with the verb to bureaucrat. He used this useful addition to the English language in the form; "bureaucratted". (My spell checker does not like it and nor do I).
It seems that he likes Tony Abbott's idea about the hospitals being run "locally" and he is now claiming it as his own revolutionary idea of how to fix the hospitals from Canberra.
He is going to provide 60% of the hospital funding from Canberra, by-passing the states. To pay for that, he is going to withhold 30% of the states' GST.
I assume that the states will have to find the other 40% out of what's left of their GST.
Or maybe it will be the patients who find the other 40% as a gap payment?
In the (very likely) event that the states don't like this new arrangement, he will take the whole mess to a referendum "by or at the next election".
Good luck, Mr Rudd.
He is beginning to make the Rev Tommy Douglas look like a genius.
Cheers
We call him "Batts" Garrett now. Will it soon be "Crutch" Kev?
Save us from these idiots, someone, please!
Rabz
I have every intention of doing my bit to save us from them at the next federal election.
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