As it's more than 100 days now, it has been suggested that a new thread was needed. The current govt has been breaking promises and telling lies at a rate so fast it's hard to keep up.
This below is worrying, "independent" pffft, as if your own doctor is somehow what? biased, it's ridiculous. So far there is talk of only including people under a certain age 30-35, for now. Remember that if your injured in a car, injured at work or get ill, you too might need to go on the DSP. They have done a similar think in the UK with devastating consequences.
and this is the 2nd time recently where the Govt has referred to work as welfare???? So when you go to work tomorrow (or tuesday), just remember that's welfare.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-04-20/disability-pensioners-may-be-reassessed-kevin-andrews/5400598
Independent doctors could be called in to reassess disability pensioners, Federal Government says
The Federal Government is considering using independent doctors to examine disability pensioners and assess whether they should continue to receive payments.
Currently family doctors provide reports supporting claims for the Disability Support Pension (DSP).
But Social Services Minister Kevin Andrews is considering a measure that would see independent doctors reassess eligibility.
"We are concerned that where people can work, the best form of welfare is work," Mr Andrews said at a press conference.
@gleee58 wrote:There is no reason to sell Medibank Private for short term gain. It's stupid to offload companies that return profit to the govt coffers every year.
Watch them squeal when the premiums of their private health go up and the rebate disappears. Never hear the far righters banging on about the rebate being a hand out to the leaners and the corporate welfare bludgers.
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Eroded almost into non-existence in the Fraser years, it was picked up and reborn as Medicare under Bob Hawke in 1984.
But there was another survivor from the Fraser years - Medibank Private, which started life as an uncomfortable ideological compromise for a Liberal government that disliked the state interventionism of the original Medibank but still wanted to keep a check on the private funds.
But it has also been accused in recent months of acting like a bully, using its market dominance to try to drive higher-cost hospitals - which are sometimes also the highest-quality providers - into offering lower-cost care.
Earlier this month the head of St Vincent's Health, Toby Hall, accused Medibank Private of putting profits before patients with implied threats to boycott hospitals that did not meet its demands.
"There is a huge risk when an insurance company starts telling people where to go" Mr Hall warned.
This week, as the nation farewelled Whitlam, the Abbott government placed Medibank Private on the auction block, lodging a prospectus that shows it hopes to reap in excess of $5 billion from the sale.
But others say the sale is not without its risks - both for investors, and for the broad principles of universality and equity of access that underpin Australia's health insurance system.
But others say the sale is not without its risks - both for investors, and for the broad principles of universality and equity of access that underpin Australia's health insurance system.
They fear the severing of Medibank Private's last links with government could unleash more aggressive tactics by it and other private health insurers, as they compete to drive down the costs of healthcare and maximise returns to shareholders, instead of keeping policy-holders' interests paramount.
Menadue worries that any growth in the power of private funds "undermines Medicare and takes us down the US path of inefficient, and expensive, private healthcare insurance."
John Evered, who ran Medibank Private from 1996 to 1999, says "we may well be on the brink of a proliferation of health funds operating for profit, with stakeholders who are not health fund members".
He fears the organisation's transformation into a listed company will bring "upward pressures on private health insurance premiums from very significantly higher executive salary packages and dividends to shareholders".
