Health Care

Patients 'to cover expenses' :

"AUSTRALIANS should pay their medical expenses through superannuation-style accounts, in a new approach to funding healthcare, the peak body for the nation's drug companies says.
Australia should consider introducing medical savings accounts (MSAs), in which taxpayers would deposit money to pay for healthcare, Medicines Australia chairman Will Delaat said today."

We used to have an enviable health care system and we used to know what it was and we used to have health care for everyone. Now we are largely clueless. It chops and changes. At one stage I left my private health care fund because it was of no financial value to me whatsoever. Then I joined again. Now I have no idea whether it will cover me or not and I am on the top table for everything. I am constantly out of pocket in a big way and not because I do not have good cover. The private cover used to cover me. I want a health care cover I can pay so I know that's it. I have covered myself. I don't want to find out I suddenly have 500 dollars to pay. So I think we need to look at the costs as well as the cover. I think we need to look at health cover for everyone because unhealthy people will cost a nation full stop, end of story. I just find it woefully inadequate and I find it particularly annoying I have to keep checking how much I shall get back before I decide. I do not have that much time on my hands and I want a health fund that just covers the costs...or practitioners who charge within the cover as they used to. It's a silly joke as it stands. My most recent experience was with my optician who was amazed as I was at how much I was going to have to pay for prescription lenses and new frames with the hardening treatment which I have to have. He was actually embarrassed. I was not surprised , but it cost!! Too many money makers and not enough medicine? The worst thing is a family member who also has private cover and breast cancer. Her out of pocket expenses for that kind of illness is a burden she does not need at this time. We are all covering the costs for her. That is what health cover is these days in Australia. The family pays or the patient worries themself sick.