Gail Graham's 17 year old son, Jimmy, was brain injured when his car ran into a tree in Queensland. The accident was unwitnessed and Queensland has fault-based law and insurance for traffic accidents. Because Jimmy was too injured to say what had happened and no witnesses came forward, he was uninsured. You might expect that medicare would pick up his medical bills, and it did, but the care it subsidised was hardly care at all. In a sublimely logical response to an utterly absurd situation, Mrs Graham came close to murdering her son's doctor.
This article is about the real reason why the medicare rebates don't cover the cost of doctors' services and therefore why the practice of general medicine is increasingly unsatisfactory for doctors and patients.
Today the Australian Financial Review carried a surprising and uncharacteristic number of remarks about the high cost of privatisation and the benefits of public provision of vital services.
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