Posted by Michael Wonder on 04 Oct 2017
The health system is still awaiting modernisation
4 October 2017 - Five decades on from an important speech about fixing Australia’s healthcare system, better policy is still in the waiting room, Philip Clarke and Warwick McKibbin write.
Fifty years ago this year, then-opposition Leader Edward Gough Whitlam made a remarkable speech on the importance of fixing health policy in Australia.
Whitlam began his speech by arguing that when it comes to health, the Australian Government largely plays a passive role. It subsidises a hotch-potch of private medicine, voluntary insurance, private and public hospitals, State and local interests. This is still true today.
