a great post Ed
― Dan S, Tuesday, 21 May 2019 04:40 (four years ago) link
I get the feeling it's when you get private health insurance that it all goes wrong and it starts costing a fortune. I don't have private insurance and my GP bulk-bills and I've paid for very little down the years. I spent a night in a sleep lab and paid only $80 of the $900 fee, I've had free physio, free colonoscopy. I'm resigned to the fact that one day I'll need some elective surgery and won't want to wait 2 years to have it done in the public system but it will be cheaper just to pay for it as a one-off than pay years of insurance. My brother is an oncologist and he doesn't have insurance! He tells me if you ever have anything seriously wrong with you, just front up to ER or get referred to a public teaching hospital because not only will it be free but you'll get much better care than in a private hospital. Of course the current govt will try to force everyone to go private...
― Zelda Zonk, Tuesday, 21 May 2019 05:05 (four years ago) link
Why wasn't medicare an issue. This was the government that tried to put a tax on going to the doctor. This is the government that has frozen medicare rebates to GPs and almost everything else for years. Doctors (presumably with massive HECS debt) have to choose between get $36 a time in rural Queensland treating ordinary people or $90 a time for treating Ed's stupidity in Melbourne (if some one offers you a go on an aircraft escape slide - don't do it). No-one was even talking about access to medical services in the bush or the outer suburbs. No one is talking about how the coalition is dismantling the public health system bye systematically underfunding it an providing doctors with every incentive to work in a private system that the broken insurance system can't even cover properly.
Xpost
ZZ I have definitely learnt my lesson. I will front up to St Vinnies or the Royal Melbourne from now on.
― American Fear of Pranksterism (Ed), Tuesday, 21 May 2019 05:08 (four years ago) link
Any chance this was a posterior tibial tendon?
Non-life-threatening musculo-skeletal conditions might be the least well-covered by Medicare, methinks. Even you do dash to a public ER department in the hope of being referred internally they'll often be tempted to refer you back to your GP for further scans, etc. If you're not spilling blood or having a seizure, ER doctors' investigations can sometimes be kinda cursory.
― Nag! Nag! Nag!, Tuesday, 21 May 2019 05:20 (four years ago) link
Tibialis anterior tendon
― American Fear of Pranksterism (Ed), Tuesday, 21 May 2019 05:28 (four years ago) link
I do get the impression to that musculoskeletal injurers are regarded as having happened on the job or through stupidity and therefore workcover takes care of it or it is one’s own fault.
― American Fear of Pranksterism (Ed), Tuesday, 21 May 2019 05:29 (four years ago) link
Sorry to hear you had that experience (and injury!) Ed.
Ive leaned heavily on the "fully public system" approach due to permanent emoty pockets and I have to say, I havent had a bad experience so far. Waiting lists have been reasonable, and the procedures all completely free.
(MRIs are def a different story - I need one for my shitty knees and its not covered under medicare unless I wrangle a sneaky referal from a sports (!!?!) medicine specialist ugh).
― Stoop Crone (Trayce), Tuesday, 21 May 2019 05:38 (four years ago) link
TBF my all-free procedures have been internal health related (scans, bla-scopies, etc) rather than "My hip has disintegrated and I'll be on the waiitng list for 2 years".
― Stoop Crone (Trayce), Tuesday, 21 May 2019 05:39 (four years ago) link
sorry to leapfrog so many people, just want to respond to zelda:They're just going to wait for things to go wrong for Morrison, which they almost certainly will.they already have done a whole load of times, and our compliant media just clear the way for him. so yes, in theory labor could take advantage of his daily fuckups, but they won’t get oxygen through all the loud and sloppy morrison gobjobs.on sunday i read somewhere that morrison could kick a baby in the face and the press would ask what the baby could have done differently. this is the landscape now.
― times 牛肉麵 (Autumn Almanac), Tuesday, 21 May 2019 08:14 (four years ago) link
good news Chips Bowie is running for the ALP leadership, just the personality they need now
― Tokyo Ghetto Stüssy (King Boy Pato), Tuesday, 21 May 2019 14:24 (four years ago) link
googles "Chips Bowie"
he's got my vote tbh
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sp7m8hMxPA0
― tfw you are not easily whelmed (sic), Tuesday, 21 May 2019 22:07 (four years ago) link
chip thievery *is* socialism
― Tokyo Ghetto Stüssy (King Boy Pato), Tuesday, 21 May 2019 22:14 (four years ago) link
eight hours after majority government confirmed, ScoNo's sole campaign plank has been withdrawn
― tfw you are not easily whelmed (sic), Tuesday, 21 May 2019 23:02 (four years ago) link
who could have guessed they were making it up as they went along
― times 牛肉麵 (Autumn Almanac), Wednesday, 22 May 2019 02:13 (four years ago) link