The search for better financing of health care,  including that for people with chronic illness

Yen, Laurann E; Wells, Robert W; Gillespie, James A; Leeder, Stephen R

doi:10.5694/j.1326-5377.2007.tb00992.x

Topics

A wholly state-funded or federally funded system of health care, concentrating on providing integrated services, might circumvent the political blame game

During 2005 and 2006, the bipartisan House of Representatives Standing Committee on Health and Ageing conducted a nationwide inquiry into how the Australian Government could take a leading role in improving delivery of highest quality health care to all Australians.1 This inquiry received 159 submissions and conducted hearings and interviews in each Australian state and territory. The fractured relations among the state, territory and federal governments that surface when the bills for health care roll in motivated the Committee’s choice of title for its report — “The Blame Game”.

1 Menzies Centre for Health Policy, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT.
2 Menzies Centre for Health Policy, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW.

Correspondence: laurann.yen@anu.edu.au

1. House of Representatives. Standing Committee on Health and Ageing. The Blame Game: report on the inquiry into health funding. Canberra: Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, November 2006. http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/haa/healthfunding/report.htm (accessed Mar 2007).
2. Commonwealth Department of Health and Aged Care. The Australian coordinated care trials: summary of the final technical national evaluation report on the first round of trials. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia, 2002: 149-150.
3. National Health Priority Action Council. National chronic disease strategy. Canberra: Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing, 2006. http://www.health.gov.au/internet/wcms/publishing.nsf/Content/pq-ncds-strat (accessed Mar 2007).
4. Australian Better Health Initiative: promoting good health, prevention and early intervention. Canberra: Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing, 10 February 2006. http://www.health.gov.au/internet/wcms/Publishing.nsf/Content/feb2006coag03.htm (accessed Mar 2007).
5. Potential benefits of the national reform agenda. Productivity Commission Research Paper: Report to the Council of Australian Governments. Canberra: Productivity Commission, 2006.

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