The Policy Post

A colossal all-party health FAIL ! Every element of the Australian health system is in deep dysfunction. Hospitals in every state are in greater disarray than ever before. Emergency department overcrowding alone is killing as many people as the road toll.

There’s only one way to save private hospitals.   Neither party wants to talk about it, but the crisis facing private hospitals – which provide one bed in every three in this country – is a time-bomb waiting to explode under the next government.

Drug companies prevent poor countries getting vaccines. This is how they do it. Back in the 1970s the big American drug companies, led by Pfizer, were seriously worried about their continued ability to set prices for their products around the world.

Will an Albanese government fix the mess in health? Or not? Some things we know. We know the whole health system has moved beyond crisis to an apparently permanent state of declining function.

Which state has the worst hospitals? Let’s get one thing straight. No state actually has good hospitals. The whole system has been too neglected and too poorly resourced for too long.

39% of Australians can’t afford to go to the dentist. But Medicare isn’t the answer. For a country that still likes to think it has a universal health care system, the figures are shameful.

Climate change, rainforest destruction and the next pandemic. Climate change is supercharging the risk that already exists from another form of environmental destruction – uncontrolled agricultural development in tropical rainforests.

When governments get mental health policy wrong, people die. For over half a century, governments in all jurisdictions have been funnelling money out of mental health services.