{"id":2073,"date":"2014-06-03T11:44:46","date_gmt":"2014-06-03T01:44:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/?p=2073"},"modified":"2014-06-03T11:45:26","modified_gmt":"2014-06-03T01:45:26","slug":"peter-martin-nails-the-daftness-of-the-budget-health-cuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/?p=2073","title":{"rendered":"Peter Martin nails the daftness of the budget health cuts…"},"content":{"rendered":"

…with some help from SRL. The \u00a0last par nails it:<\/p>\n

Withdrawing from\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0measures we know will work in order to fund new measures we think might work seems a daft way to manage our health. But it\u2019ll help cut the deficit.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.smh.com.au\/comment\/when-deep-cuts-are-not-healthy-20140602-zrukf.html<\/p>\n

When deep cuts are not healthy<\/h1>\n
\n
\n
Date<\/dt>\n
Peter Martin<\/a><\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n
\n
\n

Economics Editor, The Age<\/h4>\n

View more articles from\u00a0<\/span>Peter Martin<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\"Illustration:<\/p>\n

Illustration: Andrew Dyson.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

It took Mark Latham to say the unsayable. \u201cIf a cure to cancer is to be found, most likely it will happen in Europe or the United States,\u201d he wrote in the\u00a0Weekend Financial Review<\/i><\/a>. Spending scarce funds to find a cure ourselves is a waste of money, a political fig leaf to cover the electoral pain of the GP co-payment.<\/p>\n

Anyone who doubts that the Medical Research Future Fund is a fig leaf or an afterthought, needs to only look at the pattern of leaks and speeches leading up to the budget. Ministers spoke often about the need to restrain the cost of Medicare, scarcely at all about the need to boost medical research.<\/p>\n

They weren\u2019t able to prepare the way for the medical research future fund because it didn\u2019t come first. It isn\u2019t that pharmaceutical benefits, doctors rebates and future hospital funding are being cut to pay for the fund. It\u2019s that the fund was evoked late in the piece to smooth the edges of the cuts.<\/p>\n

Under the descriptions of 23 separate cuts in the budget are \u00a0the words: \u201cThe savings from this measure will be invested by the government in the Medical Research Future Fund\u201d.<\/p>\n

The cuts hit dental health, mental health, funding for eye examinations, measures to improve diagnostic images, research into preventive health, a trial of e-health and $55 billion of hospital funding over the next 10 years.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re told the cuts are to build\u00a0a $20 billion Medical Research Future Fund<\/a>, but the immediate purpose is to cut the deficit.<\/p>\n

The wonders of budget accounting mean that the savings notionally allocated to the fund will actually be used to bring down the budget deficit except for when money is withdrawn from the fund to pay for research.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the same trick Peter Costello pulled with the Future Fund. The government gets two gold stars for the price of one. It can both cut the deficit and build up the funds for medical research. And it isn\u2019t yet too sure about what type of research.<\/p>\n

Under questioning by senators on Monday, health department officials revealed that they didn\u2019t even know about the fund until late in the budget process and even then provided no advice on how it would work.<\/p>\n

Asked about the kind of things the fund would finance, the department’s secretary Jane Halton said the questions were hypothetical.<\/p>\n

Would it include evaluations of potentially life-saving preventive health measures such as SunSmart and anti-tobacco programs? \u201cI think it\u2019s unlikely based on the description I have seen, but again we are in an area that we probably can\u2019t yet answer,\u201d she replied.<\/p>\n

A few minutes later she asked for her words to be expunged saying she really didn\u2019t know. \u201cWe need to work through this level of detail\u201d she told the senators.<\/p>\n

We know that cures for cancer, Alzheimer’s and heart disease will be part of fund\u2019s remit, because the Treasurer told us so. \u201cOne day someone will find a cure for cancer,\u201d he said after the budget. \u201cLet it be an Australian and let it be us investing in our own health care.\u201d<\/p>\n

Latham\u2019s point is that the idea is silly. By all means contribute proportionately to a global effort to find cures for diseases, but don\u2019t try and lead the pack by taking scarce dollars away from applying the medical lessons we have already learnt.<\/p>\n

Small countries like Australia are for the most part users rather than creators of technology, and our funds are limited as Joe Hockey well knows.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Medical Journal of Australia<\/i><\/a>\u00a0isn\u2019t fooled. This month\u2019s editorial says a government genuinely concerned about extending the working lives of Australians would be investing more in preventing chronic disease, not less.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe direct effects of the proposed federal budget on prevention include cuts to funding for the National Partnership Agreement on Preventive Health, loss of much of the money previously administered through the now-defunct Australian National Preventive Health Agency, and reductions in social media campaigns, for example, on smoking cessation,\u201d it says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIncreased funding for bowel cancer screening, the Sporting Schools initiative, the proposed National Diabetes Strategy and for dementia research are positive developments, but do not balance the losses.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the\u00a0indirect effects<\/a>\u00a0of the measures the fund seeks to make palatable that have it really worried. The $7 co-payment will work out at $14 for patients with chronic diseases. They\u2019ll pay once to see the doctor and then again to have a test. The editorial quoted four studies which have each found that visits for preventive reasons are the ones co-payments are most likely to cut back.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe effects of these co-payments on preventive behaviour are greatest among those who can least afford the additional costs,\u201d it observes. Which is a pity because \u201cthe potential for prevention is greatest among poorer patients, who are often at a health disadvantage\u201d.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll all suffer if co-payments cut vaccination rates, even those of us who aren\u2019t poor, and even if the Medical Research Future Fund finds a cure cancer.<\/p>\n

The journal\u2019s biggest concern is that the cuts to hospital services will hit preventive health measures because they are seen as less urgent.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe greatest pity of all is that the proposed cuts to funding for health come at the time when the first evidence is at hand of potential benefits of the large-scale preventive programs implemented under the national partnership agreements,\u201d the journal writes. \u201cA slowing in the rate of increase in childhood obesity and reductions in smoking rates among indigenous populations have been hard-won achievements.\u201d<\/p>\n

Withdrawing from\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0measures we know will work in order to fund new measures we think might work seems a daft way to manage our health. But it\u2019ll help cut the deficit.<\/p>\n

Peter Martin is economics editor of\u00a0The Age.<\/i><\/p>\n

Twitter:\u00a0@1petermartin<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

…with some help from SRL. The \u00a0last par nails it: Withdrawing from\u00a0\u00a0measures we know will work in order to fund new measures we think might work seems a daft way to manage our health. But it\u2019ll help cut the deficit. http:\/\/www.smh.com.au\/comment\/when-deep-cuts-are-not-healthy-20140602-zrukf.html When deep cuts are not healthy Date June 3, 2014 Peter Martin Economics Editor, … Continue reading Peter Martin nails the daftness of the budget health cuts…<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,10,22,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-healthcare","category-healthy-habits","category-policy","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2073"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2075,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2073\/revisions\/2075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}