Interview Dr Bill Glasson, AMA President, with Chris Uhlmann, Radio ABC 666 Canberra - National Health Care Agreements

COMPERE:     Well the last two, that is of course including this one, National Health Care Agreements have been exercises in brinkmanship.  If you cast your mind back to the one that was signed in 1998 talks - staggered on for ages, nearly two months in fact, and in the end the Federal Government ended up having to cough up another $915 million.

Now in an effort to make sure that didn't happen this time around, the Federal Government put penalties into place so that if you didn't sign up after a certain time, and that time is soon, then things would turn out very badly for you indeed.

The Labor Governments, the State and Territory Labor Governments, have been hanging tough, that is until yesterday when the ACT Government broke ranks and signed up.  To tell us what he thinks of that, Dr Bill Glasson, who is the Federal President of the AMA, good morning.

GLASSON:      Good morning to you, Chris.

COMPERE:     You don't think this is a good deal?

GLASSON:      Oh, Chris, I - Can I congratulate the ACT Health Minister for actually putting patients before politics.  Because this is what's happened over the last month or so is that the reverse has occurred and there's a whole lot of politics being played out, which I think the average consumer out there has really had enough of.

And I think in the interest of gaining the best deal he could get out of this current agreement, the ACT Health Minister has agreed to sign.  And I understand it's worth about an extra $15 million, over the term of the agreement, of which $7 million is earmarked for transitional facilities so that we can actually get patients out of hospitals, hopefully a little quicker.

So I think we should be acknowledging the fact that the Minister here has been responsible.  And I'd suggest that the other States around this country should sign off on this deal so we can get rid of the politics, as I say, and sit down and actually decide on what is an appropriate process for the future whereby we can actually look at what are the needs of the community first, and then try and get a budget to fit it, rather than the other way round.

COMPERE:     But it locked us into under-funding, you said earlier this morning.

GLASSON:      Well it has.  I mean essentially this whole scheme of things has locked us into a system whereby I think it will not reflect the needs of the community over the next five years.  And that's why I think we have to sit down and rejig this so that we can in five years time, you and I can access services both in the public system and also in the private system that we need to.

But I don't think it's been irresponsible.  I think that the reality is that we need to sign off on this current agreement but we need to actually come back and revisit it when the true facts are laid on the table and the politics is hopefully removed.

COMPERE:     There's politics at every level of this though, isn't there?  The AMA's not above playing politics itself on occasions and we've seen over many, many years now, of course, that the number of different services that you can get in health has risen which is part of the reason the costs are going up.

GLASSON:      That's right, Chris.  Yes you're absolutely correct.  We're getting older, we're an older population by the year in the sense that we're ageing.  The demands for medical services are increasing, the cost of those services and what we can provide are increasing.

And also important the expectations of the community out there are that, you know, we do need to be - we want the Rolls Royce treatment and we expect the Rolls Royce treatment and Australia has been able to provide the Rolls Royce treatment, unfortunately - or not - fortunately.

But the reality is the cost of that now has reached the stage that, you know, that you and I have to make a decision whether we're going to reach deeper into our pocket to pay increased taxes to fund this system or something's going to have to give.

COMPERE:     Well I guess something is giving when we see the waiting lists and all the other problems that are attended with acute care in health in Australia.  But the Federal Government surely has to make a decision and says this is what it's worth, this is how much we can afford.

GLASSON:      You're absolutely right.  On both sides, that the State and the Federal Government have to decide what money they're going to put into the system and how much they can afford and then decide, if that's the case, who's going to ration, you know, ration the services because essentially that's what's going to happen if we - we're not going to put more funds into the system, we're going to have to somehow start to increase the rationing.

That's not for the medical profession to do, that's for those that fund the system to decide.  So, and I sort of think it's important for the community to decide as well because the reality is that we can fund it but something has to give for that to occur.

COMPERE:     How much do we need to spend?  How far short does this agreement fall for you?

GLASSON:      Well I can't give you an exact figure, Chris.  But all I can say is that if it's based on the previous funding over the last five years, which it essentially is, it's indexed to some degree but the indexation does not reflect the true cost or the rise in costs in the health system.

I would suggest to you that this is going to be at least, you know, 15 to 20% off the mark in the long term and that's why we've got to come back and revisit the formula by which this was calculated.  So that in four or five year's time we don't - we're not continuing in this crisis in our public hospital system which we're finding in every state across this nation.

COMPERE:     Dr Glasson, thank you.

GLASSON:      Chris, my pleasure.

COMPERE:     That's the Federal President of the AMA.

Ends