Health Department Avoids Hard Questions
Sydney Morning Herald
Saturday April 12, 2008
THE federal Health Department is trying to massage the health forum at the 2020 Summit in an attempt to avoid focus on sensitive issues for Labor such as health insurance and patient costs, some participants say.
The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, has promoted next weekend's summit as an opportunity for the nation's best brains to thrash out fresh ideas.But some of the 88 summiteers invited to the health talkfest believe questions suggested by the Health Department in a briefing document are "prosaic and over-cautious", the leading psychiatrist Ian Hickie said.The proposed topics for discussion make no mention of systemic issues such as Medicare, the $3.5 billion health insurance tax rebate, mental health services and the rise in patient out-of-pocket medical costs.The 12 proposed questions include how to balance spending on treatment and prevention, how to plan for emerging health challenges, and why healthy lifestyle messages were not being heeded.One question could prompt questions for the Government: "What strategies need to be considered to ensure equitable access to health services?""It's time our health system got out of the 20th century and planned for the 21st," Professor Hickie, the head of the Brain and Mind Research Institute at the University of Sydney, said. Another health participant said the department would be doing its job by seeking to avoid focusing on provisions the Government had pledged not to axe, such as the health insurance rebate and Medicare. Another participant, Kate Carnell, a former Liberal chief minister of the ACT, said she did not feel constrained by the proposed topics. The biggest restraint would be time, she said.
© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald