[ExI] government corruption

[painlord2k at libero.it]

Il 26/02/2009 12.11, Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto:
> 2009/2/26 painlord2k at libero.it<painlord2k at libero.it>:

> Yes, the case of this particular hospital is well-known in Australia.

It is obviously a public hospital, and it continue to be open and 
working. The administrators tell how difficult is to find qualified 
workers and how hard is their job.

This reinforce my point; a private hospital could never do the same 
thing and continue do be open. Or they could do the same things at much 
lower costs.

I'm sure that, when the hospital is sued and lose, the money used to pay 
the damages is taken from the budget of the hospital and not from the 
salaries of the management. So taxpayers pay for the errors of the 
management.

> There are problems in isolated rural areas of Australia attracting
> medical and nursing staff, either private or public, and more of the
> burden falls on the public system since that at least the government
> has some control over: they recruit staff from overseas to fill
> vacancies.

I have this idea about the fact that health professionals are not paid 
enough.

> I have worked extensively in the public hospital system in
> Melbourne for the best part of two decades and although I at work I
> whine about the way things are run (overworked, underpaid,
> understaffed, forced to document everything in excruciating detail in
> for purposes of accountability and in case the hospital is sued) I can
> honestly say that I have never been exposed to a part of the system
> which would make me hesitant about being a patient there myself.

Would you put yourself in the hand of this particular hospital in the 
news? The problem is not the best, but the minimum standard.


> Many
> of my colleagues either don't have private health insurance or, like
> me, only have the cheapest (almost useless) private health insurance
> for the tax benefits, expecting to go into a public hospital if they
> really needed to.

You and them have, probably, no other choice. You have not enough money 
left, after paying for the compulsive health system.

> The private hospitals tend to be smaller and
> concentrate on simpler higher margin procedures on relatively well
> people: if someone is very sick, has a condition which requires highly
> specialised care, or if it looks like they will have a long admission
> which their insurance won't cover, they put them in an ambulance and
> send them to the nearest public hospital.

The existence of a public health system make impossible for a private 
health system to expand and cover also the most costly procedures.
The system is good only for the poor that are unable to pay for 
healthcare (they receive more than they pay), but as the system tax the 
middle class (the rich are too few to pay a significant part of it and 
have way to avoid to pay) it leave the same middle class without the 
money to pay for a complete private coverage. Then the private have to 
compete with a "free" service. It is "free" only because the people have 
already paid for it (forcefully), so they can choose to accept the 
public service or pay again for a private service. Obviously, apart for 
the richer, the middle class have not the money for pay again. The 
private must offer a service that must be so much better than the public 
one to justify to repay the service completely and it much be enough 
cheap that middle class are able to pay for it with their disposable 
income and this expenditure must can first than other expenditures for 
other want and needs.

It is incredible that the private can compete for anything.
And they are able to compete only because the government is doing a 
shitty job.

The public health system work like a insurer, in the implicit assumption 
that not all people will be sick or in need in the same time and the 
majority will not consume as much as it pay.

That the public is unable to satisfy the simpler and most common needs 
of the people it is a admission that it is inefficient and bloated.

Mirco