this post was submitted on 07 Apr 2025
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Dutton is a hard right conservative. People like him want crack down on everything, wind back social programs like Medicare, get stuck into workers pay and conditions and screw up our relationship with major trading partners (like China). It’s pretty obvious that when he came out with those brain fart policies, he was speaking from the heart. The upshot is that he will revert as soon as he is PM.
Does Australia have Medicare?
Yes we have a good broad based system. A trip to the ER costs nothing. Many doctors visits are at least partially covered. I had to have overnight tests done which required a (public) hospital stay - no out of pocket. It's not perfect but it's pretty great compared to, say, the US. Conservative side of government would love to dismantle it and both sides chip away at it.
I know Australia has public healthcare, but is it literally called "Medicare"?
Yes, but unlike the American Medicare, ours is universal healthcare.
Yes it is. The first version introduced in the 70s under Whitlam was called Medibank but the Fraser government fucked that up. So the Hawke government reintroduced universal health care as Medicare in the 80s and Medibank persisted as a weird government owned private health insurer which Abbott privatized.
oh, yes its literally called Medicare. Since the mid 1980s
The Aussie system was modelled on the Canadian system at the time. It works well as there is somewhere that people can go and get free medical treatment even if there often is a long wait time.
Yeah it is.
I just had a quick look because I thought the Australian term would pre-date the american one but it doesn't aparently we copied it from you.
It should've been Medicaus or mediroo or something.
I'm a little surprised. Wow. But it does seem to be older. 41 years according to wikipedia. Looks like it was the yanks who copied it ;)
Yep. medicare.gov.au Aussies all have a Medicare card which we show at medical appointments to handle the billing. Not everything is free but a lot is covered. I just had an ultrasound for a hernia and it didn't directly cost me anything.
It's crazy good.
3 kids born by c-section, all spending time in the special care nursery. The only thing that I had to pay for was parking.