The recent above-inflation rise in health fund premiums prompts queries about the emergence of big for-profit health care industries and the competing interests of sufferers and profits.
In latest weeks, we have observed this play out in 2 multi-billion dollar industries: reporting of high profits in health insurance at a period when customers pay more for less in health cover; and in pathology services, the questioning by both government and researchers of the role Medicare plays in generating revenues to for-profit companies.
It appears likely that the growth of for-profit industries in the delivery of health care will sustain, on the arguable grounds that the private sector delivers a more cost-effective result than public services. For governments and politicians, private sector health care may also afford the attraction of distancing government from the daily clamour of health issues.
The trend towards the participation of for-profits in health care, needs governments, taxpayers and customers to support strategies that make sure the objectives of access to cost-effective health care for all are secured and promoted.
We require an open and dynamic system that will need the light of transparency to be shone into entire corners of our health arrangements, and real competition for the billions of taxpayers' dollars made present for what we hope to be evidence-based care.
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