It's not perfect, but our health system is one of the best

When it comes to self-belief, Australians are funny. We have no doubt that Australia punches well above its weight in almost every sport. And our Diggers are braver and more dependable than the rest. In other departments, however, we don’t rate ourselves highly.Australians pay among the lowest taxes of all developed nations, but the belief that we’re among the highest taxed is so widely believed it’s impervious to facts.Take...

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Health insurance: paying to boost specialists' incomes

I think I could probably get to the end of the year just writing once a week about the many problems Scott Morrison faces, but doesn’t seem to be making any progress on. And that’s before you get to climate change. Take private health insurance. The public is terribly dissatisfied with it because it gets so much more expensive every year and because, when you make a claim, you’re often faced with huge out-of-pocket costs you...

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Private health insurance is a con job

You won't believe it, but my birthday was on Tuesday and I got a present from the federal government. I also got a card from my state member, sending his "very best wishes" for reaching such an "important milestone" in my life. I almost wrote back asking him to alert the Queen to be standing by in 30 years' time. Instead, my ever-sceptical mind told me the pollies have awarded themselves privileged access to the private information...

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