Health Care Costs

Reducing Health Care Costs.

With our aging populations and the increasing health complications caused by obesity, std's and smoking, the future demands on the worlds health care facilities will be enormous! This, coupled with ever increasing costs of health care components will present an enormous financial burden.
Controlling prices is vital to avoiding the looming national disaster of unaffordable health care. The proposed Prices Justification Commission (PJC) will be given the power to limit those costs.
Dental Care is a good example..
There are millions of people suffering while they wait years for public dental care. The problem is not government apathy, The problem is that the taxpayers can't afford the average $400 for each of those millions of teeth. Expert analysis of the time and components involved indicates that $400 is about 3 times higher than it should be. That extreme price is largely due to the exorbitant pricing on everything the Dentist uses. The drill tips; The drugs; The compounds; The insurance; Even the chair. The proposed PJC could reduce all those components to half price - and the manufacturers would still make a large profit.

No one should be getting wealthy out of disasters or 'States of Emergency'.
The world Health Care Crisis is a disaster and a 'State of Emergency' and it seems many people involved in Health Care are trying to get obscenely wealthy! Some of the workers in hospitals demand over $400 an hour! Can you picture Hawkeye Pierce in the MASH TV series demanding that kind of pay!
If we don't take urgent and strong action on reducing prices, the future costs of health care for the Baby-boomers will bankrupt our nations.
Just as Australia was famously able to stand up to Big Pharma in the US and successfully demanded drugs at greatly reduced prices, our PJC will severely restrict the profit margins of Medical Drugs, Medical Insurance, Medical Equipment manufacture & Medical Services.

As part of the push to lower costs, a Non-Profit, National Medical Insurance company will be set up.
It will be managed by a tribunal of 'world best' experts in that field. Like the Navy, it will be run under the POEM model and, because it is Non-profit, and coupled with the push to lower all costs, health insurance should be less than half the current prices.
Rampant Litigation will also be addressed. Currently, GPs are ordering thousands of unnecessary tests to ensure they are not subsequently sued for neglecting a possibility. (Just being 99% certain that a test was not necessary will not save them in court!)
We will be severely restricting the awarding of lump-sum damages awards, most awards will simply cover the payment of directly related expenses. All medical staff in the public health care industry will have free liability coverage.

Medical Patents..

"A Patent is a Privilege, granted by the people (the State), to assist in the development of a 'benefit' to the people. Any patent can be revoked by the people (the State) if it is abused or proves not to be a 'benefit' to the people."

Currently, patents are seen as a license to extort.
Under patent protection, obscene profits are being extracted from the people and prices are set at levels that result in the death of thousands of people.
This abuse is obviously not a 'benefit' to the people and therefore the people have the legal right to withdraw such patents.
We will be holding referendums in each nation to determine if the public (who already are the ultimate legal owners of all patents) wish to have all 'critical to life' patents controlled and regulated by a new 'International Patent Authority'
With or without this Patent Authority, we will be greatly controlling the profit margins to ensure each patent is a real benefit to the public. Any patent covering something that is 'vital to life' must be affordable to the majority of the worlds population.

Future Costs of Tobacco related disease..

Our broad policy of "User Pays" clearly applies to the self-inflicted damage tobacco causes. The future costs of Tobacco related diseases will be many billions of dollars. It is unjust to expect the prudent non-users to pay for that care..
It's obvious that we cannot collect that amount of money by simply tinkering with the tax on cigarettes - the price will have to be tripled. That will quickly give a large proportion of smokers the will-power to quit. That price increase will cause financial hardship on the families of smokers who are too addicted to quit. For such smokers, there could be a phase out period where they were able to buy 'nicotine patches' on doctors prescription at greatly reduced prices.

Future Costs of STDs - [read more]

Public Sport promotions..

Encouraging Personal Sports.. [read more.]