Australian Health Care System Linked To Another Health Care System

Australian Health Care System Linked To Another Health Care System Australian Health Care System Linked To Another Health Care System Regarding Jose Socio-economic â€" Essay Example > The Australian and Canadian Health Care Systems are comparable in many of the key measures of successful national health care systems, that is in the areas of Accessibility, Equity and Efficiency: translated into a practical level these terms describe how easily a person in a country can get health care service, how easy it is for all people in that country to get health care regardless of income or education or age, and how economically, quickly and effectively that health care is delivered. After first outlining the structures of the Australian and Canadian Health Systems, the comparison of these systems in terms of their relative Accessibility, Equity and Efficiency can effectively be made by taking a case scenario of the medical treatment of Garcia Lopez, a 20 year old student training for a trade certificate, working casually at an income below taxable levels and living with first generation, financially limited Spanish, immigrant parents. If Garcia were to suffer an Achilles tendon rupture in a soccer injury and require hospitalization and 6 months of post-operative physiotherapy care what would be the the level of treatment he would receive in the aforementioned variables in the Australian and Canadian Health Care systems? To further complicate the issue how would Garcia's experience compare to another young man who received a similar injury but differed in the sense that he had two middle income professional parents who supported him. In answering this question an greater understanding of these two fine health care systems can be achieved. There are many similarities between the Canadian and Australian Health Care systems. Both are Commonwealth countries that were once colonies of Great Britain which now have Federal Democracies that provide a universal health care system that is available to all citizens regardless of ability to pay for the services. Both systems of public health care are called Medicare and the funding for these systems is taken from tax revenues. The difference, and to some observers of developments in Canada this may be temporary, is that Australia has a parallel system of private health care that Canada due to legislative limits has only flirted with. In Australia the government is composed of a Federal Government that oversees 6 state and 2 territorial governments. In Australia the the universal public system is funded by a public system levy that is imposed on all whether or not they are in the private system or not. The taxes that finance the the public system are collected by the Federal Government and allocated to state and territorial governments to administer. While the public system is freely available to all the government has instituted tax incentives for joining the private system before the age of 30 and penalties for those that do not. This has resulted in up to almost half of the population now registered in the private system. The private system is run through up to 40 different Insuranc e Plans while the public system is a non rationed system that is run through the state and territorial governments with capitation occurring in some areas. The doctors in Australia are mostly private operations that are funded publicly by the public system and by private insurance plans in the private system. Doctors in Australia have the option to extra bill and this is a common occurrence in specialist offices. Extra billing can also occur in public settings but up to 85 % can be re compensated through the Medicare plan. In cases where patients income levels fall below a certain level a 100 % re compensation can be had through Medicare. Patients in the private health care plans have access to the private and public systems and have the privilege of choosing their own doctors and in general have less waiting for services as well as access to some secondary care such as physiotherapy which is not covered in the public system. Patients in the public system are entitled to hospital care in state hospitals but they cannot have a choice of their physician unless they opt into the private care at extra cost which is option that everyone is entitled.