Health care system - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (Country comparison)

Medicare (Australia) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Healthcare in the United Kingdom - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Medicare (United States) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Health care reform in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010. Seems the Obamacare plan is considerably different to ours. The overall concept including prior arrangements is quite complex by the looks.

AFAIK in Australia everyone is covered by Medicare unless you fall over a particular financial income bracket. At the bottom end financial bracket here, some visits to doctors are free, some medicine may be reduced by over 70-90% in price. Hospital treatment might also be free.

That is for general public health treatment. If you wish to use private hospitals & doctors who do not off medicare rebates, then you are expected to use private health insurance. Advantage will usually be private rooms in hospital & probably shorter waiting times for surgery waiting lists. Some hospitals are private hospitals only. General hospitals are highly funded by state & federal governments. I believe hospitals work considerably differently in the USA.

"Australia: All legal permanent residents are entitled to government-paid public hospital care. Treatment by private doctors is also paid by the government when the doctor direct bills the Health Department (Bulk Billing). Medicare is funded partly by a 1.5% income tax levy (with exceptions for low-income earners), but mostly out of general revenue. An additional levy of 1% is imposed on high-income earners without private health insurance. There is an uncapped 30% subsidy on private health insurance. As well as Medicare, there is a separate Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme under which listing and a government subsidy is dependent on expert evaluation of the comparative cost-effectiveness of new pharmaceuticals. In 2005, Australia spent 8.8% of GDP on health care, or US$3,181 per capita. Of that, approximately 67% was government expenditure."

% of health costs paid by government (World Health Report 2000,):
Australia 67.7, Norway 83.6, UK 81.7, USA 45.4

I notice Norway has 80% more nurses per 1000 persons than countries like ours. lol