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media-scare over medicare by murdocchio...

murdoccio

Media Botch on Monday 4th of July ran a study of the media's influence on voters concluding that it had very little impact. I disagree.

I would admit that the clowning about Shorten on the Front pages of The Daily Telegraph, being way over the top, would have demeaned the DT itself. These may not have had much impact on voters' intention, just their gut feeling that the Telegraph might be going a bit too far, predictably. What could have influenced voters would have been its crafted editorials and sneaky words from its uber Kommentariat — words repeated by Malcolm Turnbull especially that Medi-scare was a big Labor lie. 



Malcolm is a liar should have been the headlines.

I would suggest here that some of this clowning and editorials would still have influenced a certain portion of the swinging voters to believe that Bill Shorten was a liar. Though most of the New South Wales swung to Labor, the damage could have been a lot worse for the coalition had the papers ran with proper balanced or impartial views.

Even The Sydney Morning Herald, like 26 out of 27 newsprint in Australia, showed its conditional love for Malcolm. This WOULD HAVE limited the damage to the coalition and made a dint in Labor's prospects. Most papers refused to properly analyse the "possibility" of Malcolm's privatisation of Medicare. The MMMM (mediocre mass media de mierda) chose to take his word for it.

Re Medi-scare, the voters did not have to be reminded that Abbott had lied about it in 2013 like he did he 2005 (Get rich quick; mug the sick!). During his one year and 363 days in office, he tried to pull a few swifties, including co-payments of $7, then $5 and when this was rejected by parliament, he planned to give doctors less Medicare rebate cash for patient visits, which doctors would have had to charge by default, or go poor. Result? The slow degradation of medicare. Even John Wattus (Winston Rattus) Howard tried to sink Medicare (Used to be Medibank...) with Abbott as the health minister and Costello as the treasurer (Safe in our hands...). 

Turnbull, the smart business operator saw an opportunity to feed his "private" mates from the government's teats and proposed to give some of the financial control of Medicare to the private sector. This WAS the thin end of the wedge to move the entire operation of Medicare into private hands, under government supervision, thus technically it is still a "public" service entity. The next step of course is easy. With a "majority" government, he could have shifted it entirely into the hands of private operators "for efficiency", like the government did with Medibank private, while keeping the collection of cash as a tax that can be fiddled with (raised or lowered — dream on) but directly collected by private companies. 

Only one journalist saw through this clearly. Another journalist has read more in it that he should. 

Ross Gittins sees the winner of the scare campaign as the medical profession and the pharmaceuticals. Of course these people will try to milk Medicare as much as possible. But this is not new. They have done it constantly before. No, the real winner of Medi-scare are the ordinary people and the government will have to bite the bullet.


Gus Leonisky
Your local self-medicated with red ned old kook

 

this has been the thin edge of privatisation...



Private sector to deliver Medicare benefits under radical government ...


www.smh.com.au/.../private-sector-to-deliver-medicare-benefits-under- radical-government-proposal-report-20160208-gmoyfv.html

9 Feb 2016 ... Labor vows to fight medicare changes. The government is reportedly considering outsourcing the medicare payments system. ... Medicare payments and other health benefits could be delivered by the private sector under a major shake-up being considered by the Turnbull government.

 

If this is not the thin end of the wedge to be "scared-off", what is?... The "private"sector would cream the product, like it did many times before...

more scary than ever...

Today, 28 August 2016, the Sunday Telegraph thells us with confidence that the Liberlas (CONservatives) never had the intention of privatising Medicare "because the bulk-billing figures are up". So the campaign by Shorten was despicable. So there. 

 

Any decent analyst would tell you that's of course an "unrelated event" to the intentions of the government. It's a bit like saying that Baird did not contemplate selling the Sydney Buses to private enterprise because the patronage was up. 

 

To the clever observer, should medicare bulk billing go up, would be an incentive to the government to "sell" the enterprise to private hedge funds as there would be warranty by the government of a minimum payment per customers using bulk-billing plus a certain fee for the management of it. And of course anyone in the loop would know that's where the Turnip government wanted to go — first by privatising the collection of Medicare cash from COMPULSORY public contribution plus a management fee, turning the operation into a cash cow. 

 

The fact that "there is more bulk-billing from doctors" has basically NO RELATIONSHIP with the intent of privatisation apart from actually giving privateers a sniff of more cash to be made, should the government decide on privatising the caper... 

 

As usual, the Telecrap sells crappy furphies... and so is the government:

 

The Federal Government says new figures on bulk billing rates prove Labor's campaign on its treatment of Medicare has no basis, with an increase in the number of GP visits fully paid for by the scheme last financial year.

Out of 145 million GP services, 123 million were fully funded under Medicare in the 2015/16 financial year.

That equates to 85.1 per cent of visits bulk billed, compared to 84.3 per cent the previous year.

Health Minister Sussan Ley said it was a higher rate than anything achieved under a Labor government.

"Across Australia there were 17 million more bulk billed GP attendances in the last 12 months, compared to Labor's last full year in office," Ms Ley said.

"Medicare, that underpins universal affordable access for all Australians is continuing to work very well, to spend very well — which is good because [what] it proves is we're making that investment, $4 billion more in Medicare over the next four years."

Ms Ley said the Coalition had invested more than $21 billion in Medicare last year, and the party's commitment to the service could not be questioned.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-28/medicare-figures-prove-labor-campaign-has-no-basis-ley-says/7791682

 

As I said, the intent to sell Medicare is NOT related to the amount of bulk-billing.