Abbott vows to hand hospitals to communities

Australian Broadcasting Corporation ^ | February 14, 2010

[myknowledge]

Opposition leader Tony Abbott says public hospitals should be run by the community to stop the health system being strangled by red tape.

The Coalition says if it wins the next election, it will give every major public hospital in New South Wales and Queensland a management board, doing away with local area health bureaucracies.

Mr Abbott says hospitals need to be managed by community boards held accountable by the community.

"When the Garling report in 2008 demonstrated that public hospitals were being killed by red tape, the New South Wales Government didn't appoint more nurses... it announced 500 extra administrators would go into public hospitals," he said.

"Now that's typical of the attitude the state Labor governments have taken to public hospitals in this country."

Mr Abbott says the boards would include medical and nursing staff as well as community members with experience in running large companies.

"In New South Wales you've actually got three levels of bureaucracy," he said.

"You've got the central bureaucracy , the area bureaucracy and you've got the local bureaucracy.

"I'm proposing to cut out the area bureaucracy and restore control to local people."

Mr Abbott says the boards would be given a set amount of public funding, but would also be free to raise funds from private patients or through fundraising.

"The beauty of a community-controlled public hospital is that the people who make the decisions are accountable to the people who are affected by the decision," he said.

"Decisions won't be made by faceless bureaucrats in head office, decisions will be made by people who are actually walking amongst the people who are affected by those decisions."

Mr Abbott says the Government has failed to meet its promise to take over public hospitals if improvements were not made by the states and territories.

But speaking on Channel Ten before Mr Abbott's announcement, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd defended his record on health.

"We make no apology for the fact that we've taken longer than was planned to finalise this strategy for the future," he said.

"The reason is simple, you have millions of Australians out there each year who depend on the health and hospital system they are depending on us to get this right."

[myknowledge]

Let's see if Tony Abbott can reverse Ruddcare if he becomes PM.

[GailA]

Rename, repackage, rewrite it a tad smaller, and sell another pig in a poke.

Tennessee has joined several other states in trying to pass a Health Care Freedom Act. NO COLAs for granny, retired Military or retired fed employees. BIG NEW fees for Tricare for Life retired over 65 Military's secondary health ins. (DOD bill already passed, delayed but goes into effect 2011)

New Dem mantra: Woof, woof eat dog food granny....ala let them eat cake.

Obama's War on Seniors

Socialized Med Thread

TRI CARE FOR LIFE This from a google search:

http://economicspolitics.blogspot.com/2009/05/tricare-for-life-is-obama-trying-to.html

This option would help reduce the costs of TFL, as well as costs for Medicare, by introducing minimum out-of pocket requirements for beneficiaries. Under this option, TFL would not cover any of the first $525 of an enrollee’s cost-sharing liabilities for calendar year 2011 and would limit coverage to 50 percent of the next $4,725 in Medicare cost sharing that the beneficiary incurred. (Because all further cost sharing would be covered by TFL, enrollees could not pay more than $2,888 in cost sharing in that year.)

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/99xx/doc9925/12-18-HealthOptions.pdf

http://www.vawatchdog.org/09/hcva09/hcva110609-1.htm

Bill Would Restrict Veterans’ Health Care Options 11/06/09

Buyer and McKeon Offer Amendments to Protect Veterans and TRICARE Beneficiaries

Congress plans to block Tricare fee increases
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/10/military_tricarefees_blocked_100709w

By Rick Maze - Staff writer, Oct 7, 2009

Tricare fee increases imposed last week by the Defense Department will be repealed by a provision of the compromise 2010 defense authorization bill unveiled Wednesday by House and Senate negotiators.

Snip

The fee increases were announced on Sept. 30 and took effect on Oct. 1, but the defense bill, HR 2647, includes a provision barring any fee increases until the start of fiscal 2011.

Snip

Retired Army Maj. Gen. Bill Matz, president of the National Association for Uniformed Services, said the announcement of fee increases was shocking considering that the Obama administration promised earlier this year to hold off on any new fee Tricare fee increases until fiscal 2011.

“President Obama and DoD assured NAUS and the entire military family earlier this year that there would rightly be no increases in any Tricare fees” in fiscal 2010, Matz said. “We took them at their word, and I can’t believe that a co-pay increase like this was allowed to go forward,” he added.