A SICK JOKE?

Sometimes political promises – especially in the crucial final days of a federal election campaign – can sound like a great financial contract until you read the fine print.

Yesterday, at his official campaign launch, Labor leader Mark Latham unveiled a generous plan for elderly Australians called Medicare Gold. As I said on the programme yesterday:

Forget Bob Hawke’s line that “by 1990 no Australian child will live in poverty”. Latham’s pledge was that no Australian man or woman over the age of 75 will go without a hospital bed and the Labor Government will totally pick up the tab. I did say yesterday that I thought it was a good policy. I have said many times about politicians that they often forget the only difference between old people and us is that they got there first.

To have the burden of expensive private hospital insurance lifted from struggling pensioners is a great idea. And the Latham pledge for the Government (which means the taxpayer) virtually playing insurance broker and paying for all those hospital visits even extends to what is euphemistically referred to as elective surgery. Non-emergency surgery like hip replacements etcetera.

Latham also talked about making deals for this to apply in private hospitals as well as public hospitals. And he pledged that this would cut health insurance premiums by 12 per cent. How he would force that I am not so sure.

But back to the fine print. Several callers to the programme yesterday made points that, to be frank, I should have paid more heed to. One said she had recently been to five funerals. All of those people were UNDE 75. And another caller made the point that the Latham largesse for the oldies can’t work unless there are heaps more doctors and nurses.

It is true. There are only so many operations that a surgeon can do in a day. Only so many patient beds that nurses can monitor and care for.

And if people OVER 75 are going to get priority with their care financially guaranteed by the government then the waiting lists for people UNDER 75 must, logically, get longer.

Prime Minister Howard seized on this in an interview with Sky News today. With good reason. Elderly voters – the “grey heartland” they call it -- have been Howard’s hard-core supporters since he first won in 1996.

Before the election campaign began the Howard-Costello team tickled older voters with special private health insurance for people over 65 and even higher savings for people over 75. Yesterday they were gazumped.

I am strongly in favour of free hospital treatment for older Australians. I have long been what I call a “medical socialist”. But we are on the very long horns of a dilemma here.

John Howard has a strong and legitimate point. There are millions of Australians under 75 who are on burgeoning waiting lists for hospital beds. There are people paying hefty premiums for private health cover who have to wait.

I don’t know the answer. For once both Howard and Latham have strong arguments in their favour.

Thursday, September 30, 2004

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2004