Alternative Medicine
Central Coast Herald
Thursday September 25, 2003
IT is easy to understand why private health insurers provide cover for alternative medicine: such therapies are popular and their appeal is growing. According to a study by Adelaide University professor Alastair MacLennan, Australians spent $2.3billion on vitamins, herbs, minerals and treatments such as osteopathy, naturopathy, acupuncture and aromatherapy in 2000. He said that was four times as much as the public contribution to the cost of pharmaceuticals. By offering to subsidise the costs of consultations with homeopaths, iridologists and the like, private health insurers are doing no more than responding to the needs of the market, which is what successful businesses do.
The problem is that the 30 per cent private health insurance rebate means that the taxpayer is also contributing to the cost of providing such services.
Health Minister Kay Patterson says she would ``consider the suitability" of a range of alternative therapies for which rebates are now available. Her announcement last week suggests that she is looking at how to contain the ballooning cost of the rebate. This month regulations banning ``lifestyle" benefits such as running shoes and tents were, sensibly, also made ineligible for private health insurance claims.
Unfortunately, however, the rebate itself, which costs taxpayers about $2.5billion a year, will not be subject to a review. The rebate's purpose, ostensibly, is to encourage people to contribute more to their own health care, thus easing the pressure on the public system. But it has not worked. Despite the rebate, less than half the population (about 43 per cent) is privately insured; in the June quarter 60,000 people opted out of a private health fund.
Public hospitals are still under pressure and, in its last budget, the Government announced plans to overhaul Medicare, effectively ending its days as a universal health care provider. The reforms are yet to be passed by the Senate, but in the meantime the incidence of bulk-billing, in which patients face no out-of-pocket expenses, is in steady decline.
The growing popularity of alternative health therapies may well indicate disenchantment with conventional medicine and a desire by patients to take greater control of their health, as its practitioners claim. But should taxpayers help to subsidise private health insurance cover for such services at a time when hospital emergency departments are increasingly filled with patients who cannot afford to visit their local GP?
Air-conditioning
THE decision by EnergyAustralia to discontinue sales of air-conditioners has been painted by the organisation as a move to encourage people to be more energy efficient. Another reason for the move, no doubt, is that reduced use of air-conditioning would reduce stress on an electricity-generation system that has not been growing in recent years as fast as demand. Still, the company's stand does underline the fact that we can no longer be wasteful of electricity. There are options to air-conditioning, such as insulation, that over time would be less costly.
© 2003 Central Coast Herald
