National Health Care Secretly Denies Services to Affluent

According to a report in today's Sydney Morning Herald, the Australian socialized medical scheme secretly diverts funding away from affluent areas on the basis that people with some means can pay for their health care at private facilities. Therefore, one can expect to find noticeably fewer hospitals, clinics, equipment, supplies, doctors and nurses in well-to-do areas and regions.

A SENIOR doctor who worked at Royal North Shore Hospital says staff were told 10 months ago it was State Government policy to slash the hospital's budget because "people on the North Shore had money" and could afford to use private hospitals.

Linda Dayan, a former staff specialist in sexual health at the hospital, said yesterday she left her job after being told by two managers in a meeting at Gosford Hospital in November that a "redistribution formula" had shown Royal North Shore "didn't need as much funding as other hospitals" because North Shore residents were affluent.

It's no surprise that administrators of the Aussie national health care system dispute the accusation.

A spokesman for the Health Minister, Reba Meagher, said: "We utterly reject that claim. We are bound by the Australian Health Care Agreement to provide equal access to services regardless of where people live."

Heh. I believe the doctor. A secret funding diversion scheme! It's likely a necessary element of any socialized medical system.

Why? Because there are never enough dollars to give everything to everybody. So, forget the promises of national health care, people will be denied. It's guaranteed by history. Socialism has only been successful at making everyone equally poverty-stricken.