Thursday 25th of April 2024
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the shorts of the MMMM short memory...

 

copayment

The decision to abandon the Medicare co-payment is another step back towards Square One, from which the Government hopes, on its second attempt at a budget, to build an argument that will help Australians forget about its first, writes Annabel Crabb.

Finally, the Great Autumn Budget Inoffensive has begun.

After months of dodging and feinting, training exercises, drills, dummy runs and exhibition barnacle-scraping, the Abbott Government has decided to get rid of the Medicare co-payment.

In military terms, it's the most telegraphed campaign ever undertaken by the Abbott Government. It's been nearly nine months since the Treasurer delivered the announcement, in the 2014 budget, that the Government would charge Australians $7 to visit the doctor.

This in itself was a modified proposal from the recommendation of the Audit Commission that non-concession patients be charged $15 apiece for their first 15 visits to the GP in any year, and $7.50 for subsequent visits.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-03/crabb-budget-inoffensive-hits-medicare-co-payment/6276808


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Okay, can anyone recall why we had to have a "co-payment"?... Don't click on the link yet...  Dig deep in your brains, your butt and your newspaper clippings... You would soon rediscover to your great astonishment that the "co-payment" was NEVER INTENDED as part of the budget... The co-payment was sold to us (mugs) by Joe Hockey as AN INVESTMENT INTO A MEDICAL FUND from which the interest would be drawn upon to finance medical research... Yeah... You've forgotten this tricky one already...

So either Joe LIED big time and we are moronic to give this Abbott government one more ounce of credibility or we are stupid and the government and the MMM are taking advantage of our good nature towards waspish Catholic boys who lies and lies and lies but polish your brain as if it was your butt?... You decide.

 

remember when...

The confusion about the proposed GP co-payment is causing concern within the medical research community.

The Government is considering backing away from the proposed $7 co-payment because it will not be passed by the Senate.

The co-payment will partly fund the proposed $20 billion medical research fund.

The former president of the Association of Australian Medical Research Institutes, Brendan Crabb, said the organisation did not have a position on the co-payment but did say the uncertainty was a worry.

"Certainly there's concern that if the means by which it was to be funded doesn't come through, that threatens it," Professor Crabb said.

The chair of the Medical Research Future Fund Action Group (MRFF), Peter Scott, said the confusion was delaying the fund being established.

"The co-payment has taken a lot of oxygen, a lot of attention away from that," Mr Scott said.

"It's certainly prolonged the discussions at a political level but we remain fixed in our view in advocating that the MRFF really should be done.

"If it's not funded by a co-payment it should be funded by another means."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-28/researchers-to-lobby-against-proposed-axing-of-gp-copayment/5923686

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Now, to create a nest egg of about 20 billion just for the interest to pay for medical research is a bit dumb... So when the 20 billions fund is reached, what would have happened to the "co-payment" payments? Start another fund for paper aeroplanes research?

the grand plan of politics...

 

The side of politics demonstrating a long-term strategic vision of mid-century Australia, and offering a path to get there, not only will deserve to win the next federal election, but actually will win.

Terry Barnes is a policy consultant, former senior Howard government adviser whose paper started the GP co-payment debate. 

don't bother reading: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-05/barnes-economic-ghost-story/6283328

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Planning for the future is a hard one: Terry Barnes of course is partisan in his approach. He easily forgets that Tony Turdy demolished every attempts made by Labor to improve the social moires of this nation... Terry Barnes is right wing, possibly ultra right wing with a good dose of neo-fascism disguised as neo-liberalism. 

Planning for the future was to have a national communication network called the NBN, now a ghost of itself under the knife of Malcolm, "the father of the Internet"... Planning for the future was to have an NDIS, now becoming a sideline issue. Planning for the future was to have more equity in the social responsibility network, now gone to the dogs with the promise of heavy lifting by the poor, etc... Planning for the future was to AVOID going to war under false pretences. False pretences is the domain of Tony Turdy and his acolytes, including Joe Hockey. War and fear are the bread and butter for the CONservatives. It's their way to control your freedom to be. They want YOUR metadata, not just that of potential "terrorists"... They want to know your every bowel movements — especially if you are a journalist. 

And of course one has to plan for GLOBAL WARMING... which "does not exists" when the CONservatives are in power. They have no intent to acknowledge the science as they believe in religious majik gobbledeegook before understanding how things work. Nature for CONservatives is a bird you shoot down to test your aiming skills.

Thus, what Barnes is trying to make you think about is a lot of shit. The long term strategy of the CONservatives is to keep you in a state of fear while fattening you like cattle before going to the Abbottoirs. 

To plan for the future is tricky and the side of politics least able to properly understand the need of this nation is, of course, the CONservatives. But we all know that the best plans with a fifty year outlook should include imponderables... and global warming and that the best plans can go astray. There is no problem should the solution of an expanding population be peace-meal. That's the way most societies evolved. Planning things too tightly and too early will make for an impossible future. The CONservatives are a dead lost cause on this one. Their views is often related to spreading illusion of utopia while using fear and lying through their teeth. Their best laid plan is to place their hand in your pocket to extract more cash, while giving the rich a gold pass to get richer at your expense.

Throw Tony Abbott and his bigots out... Throw Baird out...