Health, Aged Care, Medicare & Disability Support

Home Policy Spotlight Health, Aged Care, Medicare & Disability Support Page 2

Australia No Longer Has Informed Consent For Medical Procedures

As the Publisher of Liberty Itch, I receive six industry briefings, exposes or whistleblower tips weekly. Some are anonymous, others with a name.

Most don’t advance the debate on public issues.

Recently though, I spoke with a doctor, frustrated at the way government has ruined a once proud and independent profession.

His firm conclusion: informed consent, the underlying component for any doctor-patient relationship, is no longer possible in Australia.

He has been practicing medicine in Australia for 15 years, so his career is well-advanced. He presents as a professional who loves his job, with all the challenges and rewards it brings. 

Until the governments around Australia coordinated on Covid-19, he said he never cared much for politics. It wasn’t part of his life. But witnessing politicians trample over human rights, intrude and violate the sacred relationship between doctor and patient, was enough to activate him.

He’s not in the mood for forgiving the perpetrators.

Australians were openly bullied into taking vaccines on the coercive promise –that once inviolate freedoms would be restored.

When a patient presents with any health problem or condition, a doctor must convey all of the available relevant information to the patient in order to gain his or her voluntary consent for any medical procedure. When a government hides or lies, and a patient is coerced into a procedure, informed consent is dead!

Relevant information regarding a vaccination might include the side effects, relevant and absolute risk of prevention, trial information, and any other safety data. Yet the Australian Government signed secret contracts with pharmaceutical companies to supply novel medications for a new virus without disclosing any of this. 

The British Medical Association’s BMJ has written that Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration is dependent on funding by pharmaceutical companies at a worrying 96%, the highest among peer international organisations. This leads to obvious questions about independence and whether there are conflicts of interest. 
In July 2023 the TGA stated: “As reporting rates of myocarditis and pericarditis following vaccination are very stable, we will not include this section in future COVID-19 vaccine safety reports”.

Yet as our doctor-friend pointed out to me, “The rates were in fact stable, at the highest levels recorded in history. What are they now? We don’t know, because the TGA won’t give us this information.”

Australians were openly bullied into taking vaccines on the coercive promise –that once inviolate freedoms would be restored.  Vaccine mandates were slapped on a trusting populace on the basis of the greater good – of protecting others. Even now there are many places where these mandates remain despite overwhelming evidence that vaccination against Covid-19 does not prevent either infection or transmission of the disease. And despite numerous reports of adverse side effects, still no reliable data is provided. 

Australian Government signed secret contracts with pharmaceutical companies to supply novel medications for a new virus without disclosing any of this.

I listened to this doctor’s contempt for authorities as he described himself watching the CDC change its definition of the words ‘vaccine’ and ‘vaccination’ in real time to accommodate the shortfalls of the available Covid vaccines. 

One could perfectly understand his visceral reaction to the deplatforming of professionally-acclaimed, peer-reviewed medical experts simply because they shared research data that did not fit the narrative of ‘safe and effective’.

But then witness Dr Jeanette Young, the Queensland Chief Health Officer at the time, who cautioned against one vaccine whilst promoting another while, as the Courier Mail reported, her husband, Professor Graeme Nimmo, was financially incentivised by Pfizer. 

Dr Jeannette Young

Dr Young should have been punished for failing to declare a major conflict of interest, but instead was promoted to Governor of Queensland, a handsome reward from her friend Annastacia Palaszczuk, who has now resigned without facing the consequences of her own Covid-19 decisions.  

“So what happens if your doctor wants to caution you about any of this information?”, I naively asked our whistleblower doctor.

The sobering answer should send chills down the spine of all Australians.

“They will likely be suspended. The governing body of Australian doctors, AHPRA, has done just that that to several who were brave enough to speak out. As a registered doctor with AHPRA, I am not allowed to publicly state my opinions on health policy (including on social media), as it may undermine the confidence in those in political positions making up the rules. Any Australian doctor who denies this statement does not fully understand their conditions of registration with AHPRA.”

To protect his livelihood and family, he only talks to me.

The greatest discoveries in medicine and science have come from testing a hypothesis that contradicts traditional schools of thought. When the health system is hijacked by conflicted bureaucrats, problems inevitably arise. The past few years have left our doctor with an absolute disgust for our Chief Health Officers and Health Ministers, and for the first time a sense of embarrassment at what should be an honourable profession without government interference. 

Most disconcertingly of all, he feels most concern for patients who are now subject to near-complete control by the collectivist bureaucrats and their centralised treatment plans for diseases which are yet to come.

The Farce of NZ Ministry of Health Data Leak

Dealing With A Number of Organisations Concerning These Data For More Than A Year.

Several days ago Database Administrator Barry Young emerged as the Ministry of Health whistleblower. Mr Young had appropriated more than a terabyte of Covid vaccine data and released it to selected contacts in the vaccine sceptical community within New Zealand and overseas. The data was presented alongside excess mortality rates to draw startling conclusions.

Subsequently it emerged that Mr. Young had been dealing with a number of organisations concerning these data for more than a year. Sacrificing whatever little credibility he might have enjoyed, Mr. Young decided to use the NZ Loyal political party as his vehicle to announce the data release.

It is information pertinent to the health and well-being the vast majority of New Zealanders who got vaccinated against Covid.

NZ Loyal is a party founded by the journalist Liz Gunn, with a policy agenda consisting of a typical grab bag of poorly considered responses to conspiracy theories. Garnering a mere 26,000 votes at the recent general election, NZ Loyal is the epitome of a ‘fringe political movement’ – anti-globalisation, anti-international institutions, fluoridation is a conspiracy to keeps the population docile, and vaccines turn people into WiFi terminals.

Party leader Liz Gunn interviewed Mr. Young in the ludicrously titled Mother of All Revelations podcast. It was anything but: Mr Young squandered the opportunity to appear as a dispassionate analyst of the data and revealed himself to be a partisan acolyte of the Church of the Holy Mother of Idiotic Conspiracies. Compounding his error, Mr. Young issued a variety of highly suspect pronouncements concerning the causality (conflated with correlation) between the vaccine and excess mortality rates in New Zealand; pronouncements simply unsupported by the data and so tenuous and tangential as to be laughed at by anyone who cared to look.

Barry Young

Which of course the conspiracist community, revelling in confirmation bias, refrained from doing. Mr Young became the overnight sensation of vaccine sceptics worldwide, conducting interviews with such bastions of empirical evidence, the scientific method and dispassionate enquiry as Alex Jones of InfoWars and Steve Kirsch. Even Russell Brand got in on the action as the news of the leak spread around the world, amplified and exacerbated with salacious detail.

Three days after the disclosure Mr. Young was arrested by New Zealand police and charged with accessing a computer system for dishonest purposes, an offence which carries a sentence of up to seven years in prison. He had his home ransacked and electronic equipment seized and, doubtless to keep him in communicado, was remanded in custody for several days.

(Such is the New Zealand justice system: murderers awaiting trial typically do so on home detention and serial rapists have been sentenced to home detention instead of prison. Potentially embarrassing the state through misappropriating information is a far more serious offence.)
The data itself was subject to injunction and many websites complied with the New Zealand court’s ruling notwithstanding it was ultra vires, further piquing the curiosity of the conspiracist community.

The data was presented alongside excess mortality rates to draw startling conclusions.

New Zealand’s whistleblower protection laws are weak. To enjoy their protections (such as they are), a whistleblower must follow the disclosure policies of the organisation concerned in the first instance and subsequently, a suitable authority such as the office of the ombudsman. Mr. Young maintains that he followed this procedure, raising concerns with the Ministry of Health and then the Deputy Prime Minister. He has not so far released any documentation to provide corroboration, as he will require if he is to mount a robust defence against the charge he now faces.

One would hope he mounts such a defence. Losing his employment and gaining the opprobrium of those capable of critical thinking ought to be punishment enough for this fantasist who, in the final analysis, is little more than a distraction from the real issues.

Because he is, fundamentally if accidentally, correct.

There was an unexplained increase in excess mortality rates in New Zealand during the pandemic response and vaccine roll-out. The New Zealand authorities should be releasing the data they hold for independent analysis, suitably anonymised. Hiding behind commercial relationships with pharmaceutical companies and spurious interpretations of privacy provisions is improper, bordering upon malfeasance.

These data should be the property of the New Zealand people. It is information pertinent to the health and well-being the vast majority of New Zealanders who got vaccinated against Covid, and to the decisions taken by the authorities on our collective behalf. In the interests of both public health and the democratic body politic it should be available for scrutiny.

Never mind the distraction of useful idiots, the data must be released.

The Covid Precursor Everybody Ignored

You May Be Shocked To Learn This

Imagine the Australian government weaponising an engineered health crisis to rob citizens of their freedoms and destroy businesses. Then imagine the public fully supporting the government’s grotesque overreach, parroting the government’s pseudoscientific propaganda and even pimping the dubious chemical cocktail disingenuously offered to solve the crisis by the same people who sponsored it.

You may be shocked to learn this did actually happen, several years before the Covid scamdemic. The health scare in question was the skin cancer epidemic supposedly caused by commercial sunbed operators.

You probably barely remember the crisis because, well, who really cares about sunbeds? The attitude of most Australians was that people who used sunbeds were narcissists. But the solarium ban seemed to open pandora’s box. Australia’s famous sense of humour soured. Australians started calling for more and more activities to be restricted and regulated. The government eagerly obliged, increasing its rate of law making by almost 30%.

Just as it was omitted that more than 90% of people who caught Covid had mild to no symptoms.

The propaganda formula for selling the solarium ban was an early prototype of the formula we saw employed for Covid. It also showcased the components used in the great climate scam and many of the other liberty-leeching cons being perpetrated by governments around the world.

Like Covid and climate change, the propaganda began with nonsensical, reality-bending lies. Suddenly, what people had known for millennia was said to be wrong. “Tanned skin is damaged skin”. “A tan does not protect from the sun”. Until this, a tan was known to be a natural adaptive process that protected skin from burning in the sun. Sun damaged skin was not golden brown; it was red and blistered.

Next came the hysterical fear-porn based on largely irrelevant, cherry-picked statistics. “Two of every three Australians are expected to develop skin cancer”. “More than 1,200 Australians will die of melanoma this year”. Conveniently omitted from the discussion was that only 0.5% of Australians used solariums. Obviously, 130,000 people using sunbeds cannot significantly contribute to 15,000,000 people developing cancer. So the relevant statistic was redacted, just as it was omitted that more than 90% of people who caught Covid had mild to no symptoms.

Then came the extraordinarily abnormal, non-representative case studies. With the solarium ban, one 26 year old girl died of melanoma. With no evidence, she claimed her cancer was caused by just 20 solarium visits. Over 1,200 other Australians died of melanoma that year, but none mentioned using a solarium. 130,000 other Australians used solariums without dying of melanoma. Yet this one girl was plastered all over the TV, internet, radio and newspapers as the obvious proof of the danger of solariums.

You probably barely remember the crisis because, well, who really cares about sunbeds?

Next was the absence of any genuine science. No study actually showed that solariums cause skin cancer or that skin cancer rates were higher in solarium users. No study showed that prohibiting commercial solarium businesses would reduce skin cancer. The Queensland legislation even acknowledged that the sun was the primary risk factor, and the sun was not being banned.

There is strong evidence that suggests a strong link between skin cancer and a dietary imbalance of essential fatty acids (EFA’s). The average Australian diet reflects this imbalance. It is also directly responsible for epidemic levels of heart disease and diabetes, costing billions of dollars in healthcare and lost productivity. Any serious discussion about public health, including skin cancer, could not ignore Australia’s nutrition. But, like Covid, there was no place for any discussion that contradicted the dominant narrative and predetermined course of action.

Finally, just like Covid, the solarium ban featured a product so awful it needed a government sponsored con to sell. Fake tan was the solarium ban’s equivalent of the Covid vaccine, and the climate con’s carbon credits. In virtually every story covering the solarium ban was the sales pitch for the ‘safe and effective’ fake tanning products that would ‘save lives’ from the dangers of sunshine and solariums. It was as blatant as it was shameless.

Now that almost a decade has passed, we can fairly assess the government’s success in reducing skin cancer by banning solariums. More Australians are now diagnosed with skin cancer than before, the rate of skin cancer has increased, and more die of melanoma. In other words, the government failed as dismally as basic logic and math predicted. The forcible closing of over 400 small businesses, the dozens of prosecutions, the thousands of hours and tens of millions of dollars spent on propaganda and legislation all achieved absolutely nothing. Nothing except the pointless erosion of freedoms of citizens.

Death, Taxes and … Death Taxes?

“We know that there is a growing pot of wealth, sitting in the hands of older Australians that will be passed on in coming decades.”

Gosh, that sounds juicy. What government could refuse the temptation to take a slice of that pie?  

However, that sentiment speaks to the fundamental flaw in the approach of our policy makers towards balancing our books – always trying to increase revenue without doing much to cut spending.

While it would take a brave government to set their sights on inheritance as a potential source of tax revenue, comments from incoming Productivity Commission boss, Danielle Wood, indicate the wrong question is being asked. 

Structural Budget Pressures

Treasurer Jim Chalmers, who is arguably among Labor’s more agile and pragmatic front-benchers, has flagged the NDIS and aged care as key budgetary pressures going forward. While high commodity prices are currently keeping the wolves from the door, the rapidly rising cost of Government funded services and a forecast drop in revenue over time has even the typically Keynesian Labor camp concerned. 

Australian Treasurer, Jim Chalmers. Are death taxes next on the agenda?

Although Labor has denied plans for an inheritance tax are on the agenda, Danielle Wood’s comments and the wider conversation nationally on debt and deficit are clearly not focussed on fixing the most glaring issue facing the budget – spending. 

Out of control spending    

For example, since its inception in 2013, the NDIS has grown astronomically and now accounts for the biggest cost of any social program the Federal Government runs – $30 billion last financial year. Originally designed to help those with genuine disabilities, the NDIS faces many unforeseen challenges. Its expansive criteria means that over 500,000 people now use the NDIS, participants don’t leave the program as quickly as first envisioned, and up to 20% of NDIS payments are estimated to be fraudulent! 

Aged care is not immune either – one of the key recommendations of the Aged Care Royal Commission was to establish a ‘blank cheque’ style funding model. This would ensure outcomes remained uncompromised by ‘fiscal challenges facing the government of the day’. With attitudes like that, it’s no wonder social programs are growing at such a speed and are open to rorts – the government is being told the cash tap can never be turned off! What message does that send to users or providers? Of course, the first proposed solution to the issue of funding was to slap a levy on taxpayers – in other words, more tax.

Cutting through 

Dramatically reducing the size and scope of all government programs would be a more ideal solution (Caroline White knows it!), but at the very least Chalmers and the relevant ministers could begin with more palatable reforms in the service sector. For example, a user-pays model for aged care services – reducing the share paid by the general tax-base and increasing accountability for providers. Meanwhile the NDIS could benefit greatly from increased scrutiny of payments made and more stringent eligibility criteria.

The government is being told the cash tap can never be turned off!

While governments fear the political ramifications of being seen as ‘gutting’ social services, perhaps the issue needs re-framing. The Australian Taxpayers Alliance found in 2021 that a Victorian worker earning an average salary costs about $73,000 to employ. Of that amount, 55% is taxed! Our lifestyles, our productivity, our time and our future are being gutted – and all for what? So that whatever we have left when we finally kick the bucket can be taxed one last time?

We can only hope that one day governments will attempt some introspection, but it doesn’t look likely just yet. Apart from talk of scrapping the Stage 3 tax-cuts, aged-care levies and death taxes, Jim Chalmers has also flagged that he expects future nation-building funding to fall at least partially on the super funds.

At what point will we finally see the leadership required to start treating the problem of spending rather than the symptom of revenue?   

Retaining The Bargaining Chip of Indemnities For Vaccine Companies

Should we legislate to stop a government offering indemnities to vaccine manufacturers?

This was a matter which came before the Senate last week in a private members bill.

Some of the reasons given for the Bill were:

  • “Companies work for shareholders first and it is profits that motivate their decision and actions. People should always be put before profits”;
  • “Indemnification has created an incentive for risk-taking in the pharmaceutical industry which is not aligned with the fundamental principles of medicine. Where indemnity exists, it is human nature to take larger risks, whether it be a conscious decision or subconscious, the outcomes are poor”; and
  • “The pharmaceutical industry has a taste for your money.”

Vivid language for the impressionable mind!

The most amicable and well-meaning of senators championed the cause with a rousing speech. A personal friend of mine adroitly negotiated it behind the scenes. It was a case study in politicking, and even attracted the support of one Libertarian state division.

Then with the support of all but Labor, it went to committee for investigation and so will become news again soon. Yes, the centre-right crossbench attracted the Greens and even Senator Thorpe for a moment.

What is not to love?

Against such a juggernaut of consensus, this simple libertarian fig farmer has his misgivings. Have sympathy for me. It’s in my DNA to search for a principle.

We libertarians are fond of paraphrasing John Stuart Mill’s 1859 Harm Principle with phrases like “live and let live, as long as you don’t harm others.”

We are not so persistent in reminding our parliamentary friends that the Harm Principle requires that we ‘weigh such harms.’

The great horror of the last 3 years was that our leaders did not do this. Ignore psychological damage to infant school children plastered with a mask. Ignore the cheap, unhealthy food on the dinner table of a family with dual incomes lost to mandates. Ignore the evaporated life savings of ‘non-essential’ small business owners. Ignore the suicides and mental health flair-ups caused by lockdowns. Ignore the business collapses.

It was one flu-like covid-19 harm, all other harms be damned!

One must weigh the harms.

The problem with the Bill is that it applies a blanket ban and fails to weigh harms.

Just say the next virus is more potent. Let’s say it’s Ebola or something with a 50% mortality rate!

In the end, we need politicians who apply John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty in full. Live and let live as long as you don’t harm others. When there are competing harms, weigh them and choose the least harmful option.

I want our government to have the same commercial tool as any private sector party. Indemnification, or the transfer of risk, is used by outdoor adventure operators, mining equipment hire companies, and many others. Why ban the government?

As a libertarian, I prefer my government to be able to transact like the private sector.

As a libertarian, I prefer my government to be ready to act in the case of genuine pandemic threat. As established, I want the government to potentially offer indemnity to vaccine providers in the case of emergency.

And as a libertarian, I want politicians who’ll use skilled negotiators so offering indemnity won’t be necessary.

Further …

As a libertarian, I’m unimpressed by populist attacks on free enterprise, especially pharmaceutical companies which keep us alive. As a libertarian, I’d be more curious to know why anyone believes a vaccine company should absorb near sovereign-level risk for a government intent on releasing vaccines before they pass the government’s own safety standards. As a libertarian, my focus is on that government maladministration, not the vaccine company.

As a libertarian, I’d prefer my government weren’t both umpire, with its TGA vaccine approval processes, and player, being the acquirer and dispenser of vaccines. I’d prefer to eliminate this conflict of interest.

As a libertarian, I’d like to rollback government from healthcare delivery, replace tired old public hospitals with private hospitals, and to protect charities which run hospitals.

And as a libertarian, I’d prefer our allies in parliament did not run adrift philosophically into the dangerous and choppy waters of the anti-capitalist. I am left in little wonder why the Greens and Senator Thorpe kept the Bill alive.

I believe the correct approach for a libertarian here is to vote against the Bill. In our current system, the Government needs to make it easy for vaccine production to occur in the event of a genuine calamity.

Our government already has one hand tied behind its back running a socialised system. Let’s not tie the other one by banning the free-enterprise bargaining chip of indemnities.

Taxing The Country Into Welfare And Disability

We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity
is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
It is impossible.
” 

Those were not the words of an Australian Commonwealth Treasurer but rather of Winston Churchill addressing the House of Commons in 1925 arguing against a proposed increase in taxes.

Winston Churchill. Economic liberal and twice UK Prime Minister.

Almost 100 years after Churchill’s comment, Treasurer Chalmers presented his second Budget, in May 2023.  It showed yet another record amount of tax collected and sums spent.  For the coming 2024 financial year, the Government expects to collect $668 billion (25.9% of GDP) to fund $684 billion of spending (26.6% of GDP). 

Of course, spending is higher than revenue so yet again
there is a deficit to add to the national debt pile
for our children and grandchildren to pay.

Of the $684 billion of spending, it is estimated that $356 billion or around 52% will be spent on health and welfare.

And within the social security and welfare line is the following:

From a standing start around ten years ago, assistance to people with disabilities, ostensibly NDIS, is now the second largest Commonwealth government program.

Over the life of the budget (FY23 to FY27), the average annual increase in spending on the aged pension increases by 6.5%, but the average annual increase in spending on the NDIS is 7.9%.  Both increases are faster than economic growth and the average annual increase in receipts (3.7%).

Like much of the developed world, Australia is experiencing an ageing population. It could be reasonably expected that spending on aged pensions might increase, but so much for superannuation. 

Yet given the rapid growth of NDIS spending, one might conclude that
Australia is also experiencing a dramatic increase in disability. 

Maybe there is something in the water.  Or perhaps the education system.

Parked near the back of the budget papers is an analysis of real per-capita spending and taxing: per-capita to adjust for government activity increasing due to population increases; real to adjust for inflation over time.  And in these numbers, the true state of budget disrepair is evident.

On a real per-capita basis, in the 2024 financial year:

  • Commonwealth receipts are expected to be $18,102;
  • Commonwealth payments are expected to be $18,479; and
  • Commonwealth net debt is expected to be $15,574.

Impressive.  From an average four-person household, the Commonwealth expects to extract $72,408.

But here is the interesting part.  Thirty years ago, in per-capital real dollars:

  • Commonwealth receipts were $8,866;
  • Commonwealth payments were $10,110; and
  • Commonwealth net debt was $11,364.

So basically, in the space of 30 years, on a per-capita basis, we are paying double the amount of tax, the Commonwealth is spending almost twice as much, and debt is 4.5 times larger in real terms.  And 30 years ago was 1983-84, when Bob Hawke came in inheriting a national economic basket case.

It is worth noting that the inclusion of historical real per-capita data in the budget papers is owed to the negotiation efforts of former Senator David Leyonhjelm.  Such important government finance transparency highlights the value of a strong classical liberal voice in Australian parliaments.

Improved budget reporting. Legacy of former Senator, David Leyonhjelm.

During the 1980 US Presidential election debate, Ronald Reagan asked the (rhetorical) question: “Are you better off than you were 4 years ago?” Here is a question for Australians.  Is Australian government better than it was 30 years ago?  Given the doubling of taxing and spending, are services better?  Is Australia safer?  Are we healthier or smarter?

Perhaps Churchill was only half right.  A nation can’t tax itself into prosperity, but Australia is trying to tax itself into welfare and disability.

The Immorality of Medicare

In May of 1973, a year before the first incarnation of Medicare became law, the Australian Medical Association sent a letter to its members warning about the dangers of socialised medicine. They were concerned about the “interference by governments in the relationship between doctor and patient[1] and highlighted key freedoms that they said should be protected:

  • No barrier separating the patient from free choice of specialist or hospital.
  • Minimum intrusion between doctor and patient by governments.
  • Freedom and opportunity to practise on a fee-for service basis without threat of coercion or compulsion.
  • Freedom to provide a personal service based on personal responsibility within a system based on quality rather than quantity.

They were concerned about the
interference by governments in the relationship between doctor and patient

The AMA abandoned these goals long ago and now merely lobbies Governments for favours. But 50 years later, their worst fears have become a reality: an impossible melee of item numbers, rules and coercion stands between Australians and their doctors.

Consider the case of Dr. Andre Leong in WA. Dr. Leong was harassed for billing a series of item numbers more frequently than other GPs. His training and experience (including leading a medical team in Indonesia after the 2004 tsunami) prepared him for performing operations that most GPs do not. Other doctors frequently referred patients to him to perform these procedures. He stood out and was subjected to lengthy audits and investigations until ultimately forced to stop billing these items. He retired altogether shortly after. There is overwhelming community support for him online.

Dr Andrew Leong. Audited and then forced to stop practising particular medicine in which he had expertise.

47% of GPs report they either avoid providing certain services or claiming certain rebates due to Medicare compliance fears, while 61% report that the complexity of Medicare is something that worries them outside their workday. [2] Many choose to under-bill, fearful of compliance action, claiming 20-minute consultations despite spending up to 45 minutes with a patient. This pressure on doctors to quickly finalise a consultation is a common experience for patients.   

Some doctors are fed up: ‘We have had enough of the coercive control, of the abusive relationship that is Medicare[3], they protest. To add insult to injury, doctors are constantly accused of rorting The System. It is no surprise there is a shortage of GPs.

The situation with mental health is even more depressing. The number of hoops you have to jump through, and the fight you have to put up, can make anyone give up and surrender to their daemons. In a way it is reassuring when you realise that GPs, psychologists, psychiatrists, and nutritionists are all as confused and perplexed by The System as you are. I once spent 3 hours on the phone with Medicare, explaining to them the difference between related mental health items, the corresponding mental health plans, and the review process of these plans. All to convince them to pay me the refunds they were supposed to. It is absurd, demoralising and abusive.

It ought to be so simple. You go to a doctor (of which there would be many more), you pay, you receive the care that is right for you, and you form lasting relationships with your healthcare providers. No man in the middle setting arbitrary barriers and obstacles.

If we really are an egalitarian society that genuinely cares for the less fortunate, why would anyone think that without the Government we would just leave people to die on the streets? Despite losing half their income to the different levels of Government[4], Australians still donate generously to charity.

Not-for-profit organisations like the Little Company of Mary, which run the Calvary Hospitals, demonstrate society’s responsible concern. But like all monopolistic predators, Governments react to competition by trying to shut it down. That is the case with the Calvary Hospital in Canberra, now subject to a hostile takeover by the ACT Government. What then is the opportunity cost of this socialised experiment? How many foundations have not been created, how many research labs, how many hospitals?

And yet, calls to protect “our health system” are made repeatedly with a quasi-religious fervour. Protecting The System takes precedence over any individual’s best interest. It is the main reason why, for example, bringing your parents from overseas to live in Australia can cost up to $70k. Their old age is too big a threat to The System. The (involuntary) contributions you have made to fund it matter very little.

The overriding of your individual best interest by a collective abstraction which the Government claims to represent was in full display during the pandemic years.

It is clear that protecting The System is more important than going to see your dying mother, your job, your business, your wedding, your graduation, your first big gig; anything meaningful in your life can and will be sacrificed on the altar of the collective good.

Medicare, the crown jewel of Australia’s universal healthcare system, is an immoral, ruthless, conniving partner that manipulates Australians into paying for and celebrating their own abuse.    

Please support the Calvary Hospital at www.savecalvary.com.au.


[1] https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/110709423?browse=ndp%3Abrowse%2Ftitle%2FC%2Ftitle%2F11%2F1973%2F05%2F14%2Fpage%2F12209327%2Farticle%2F110709423

[2] https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/racgp/health-of-the-nation-investment-needed-to-secure-t

[3] https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/professional/a-kick-in-the-guts-frontline-gps-respond-to-medica

[4] https://www.taxpayers.org.au/submissions/the-cost-of-tax-finding-the-total-tax-burden-for-a-resident-of-victoria-australia