Policy on Health


The cause of problems in State Health Departments is that the major parties have promised to provide the public with a world’s best practice standard of hospital care. However, the budget of Health Departments are inadequate to cover the cost of this promise. When people need hospital treatment, they are refused treatment or put on a waiting list. In practice, only privileged minority groups get world’s best practice hospital care at government hospitals.

If the Mainstream Party is elected to run a State Government, we will offer only a basic standard of hospital care that the State budget can afford. Since we appreciate that the public want world’s best practice treatment, we will try to increase the State budget to pay for this, by introducing a State income tax. We will amend the State Constitution, so that any future Labor Government cannot divert revenue away from hospitals to pay for their wasteful and harebrained schemes. We will set up the following organizations:

  • Hospital Funding Commission
  • Hospital Costs Commission

The Hospital Funding Commission will be bulk-billed by government hospitals for the reasonable cost of an operation. Also, they will be bulk-billed by private hospitals, and a patient at a private hospital or health insurance fund will pay the difference. Also, patients will be able to go overseas to approved hospitals in countries like Malaysia, Thailand, India and Russia for hospital treatment, and the cost of treatment, airfares and accommodation can be bulk-billed to the Commission. The Commission will be funded by a permanent appropriation of one-fifth of the State revenue, which will be contained in the State Constitution.

The Hospital Costs Commission will work out the appropriate amount that hospitals should be paid for operations. This Commission will be independent of the government. A government will not be able to order the Commission to set unreasonably low prices, so that the government can make unrealistic promises, as at present.

The State Government’s role will be to decide what operations it will and will not pay for. For example, the government might decide that it will pay for appendix removal, but that it will not pay for “AIDS” treatment. At present, the government can pretend it is willing to pay for every controversial treatment, when in fact it will not pay for it, or will only pay for it for certain privileged patients. The Government will not decide on a case by case basis, but the operations it will pay for will be listed in a regulation. Patients will still be able to pay a government hospital to treat them with a patient’s own money.

Overseas hospitals will not get paid anywhere near as much for an operation as an Australian hospital will get paid. When patients go overseas for operations, this will not lead to a loss of Australian jobs, as there is a shortage of medical staff at present. In a few years, this would lead to a loss of Australian jobs, so then we will stop paying for patients to go overseas. Having patients going overseas will just be a temporary measure to deal with the waiting lists.

Australian doctors are not good at diagnosing medical conditions, and different doctors come up with a different diagnosis. Medicine is a science, and so different doctors should come to the same correct diagnosis. Patients should not have to research their own conditions on the internet to find out what is wrong with them. If we are elected, doctors will have to undergo continuing education by correspondence course, and an annual examination, to make sure they are all on the same page and have the latest medical knowledge.

Australian psychiatrists are said to be charlatans and not proper doctors. It is said that, if you presented an Australian psychiatrist with a group of people, some of whom were normal, and some of whom were mentally ill, he would not be able to tell them apart. Australian psychiatrists are said to have very poor ethics, for example, by telling patients that everything will be confidential, then betraying patients’ confidences. Most psychiatrists appear to be Jewish or Catholic.

To ensure that there are sufficient mainstream psychiatrists, we will introduce a requirement that general practitioners need to hold or be studying for a degree in psychiatry. We will import mainstream lecturers in psychiatry from the United States and Scandinavia, to teach a part-time course in psychiatry to general practitioners.

The best time to cure a disease is before it takes hold in the body and when it is at its most vulnerable. This is the idea behind vaccination. We will make vaccination compulsory. People will have three options:

  • Get a vaccine of your choice, from a doctor of your choice, at a time of your choice
  • Get a medical opinion that you are already immune and so don’t need a vaccination
  • Get a medical opinion that in your particular case, a vaccination would do you more harm than good

People who don’t comply will be arrested, fined, and given a vaccine, while in police custody, of the government’s choice, by a doctor of the government’s choice, at a time that suits the government. For similar reasons, we will also be putting fluoride in the water supply in all cities and towns. Contrary to what some people imagine, fluoridation is not part of an international masonic conspiracy. Not that we would tell you if it was.

We will not make it illegal to drink alcohol or smoke tobacco, as it is part of our culture. Children will be taught at school not to smoke. We will not have a high tax on cigarettes, as cigarettes are a necessity of life. All that a high tax does is force people on low incomes to scrounge cigarette butts from rubbish bins and roll their own cigarettes. Homemade cigarettes are a lot less healthy than manufactured cigarettes. If we are elected, cigarettes will cost about $5 a packet, and will not have plain packaging or health warnings.

Our Hospital Funding Commission will not just fund hospital treatment. It will also fund approved procedures by dentists and chiropracters, and approved prescriptions. Some might say that this will create a nanny state. But according to the exponents of capitalism, an insurance company is supposed to spontaneously come into existence and offer you the service that we are offering you. We are skeptical about whether the free market will all of a sudden provide this service, so we will have the government provide the service instead.