Strengths and Weaknesses of the Australian Healthcare System

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Australian Healthcare System
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Australian Healthcare System
Introduction
The Australian healthcare system consists of both public and private hospitals. Public
hospitals are owned and supervised by the state and territory governments while private hospitals
are owned and operated by private organizations. Medicare is the main characteristic of the
health system, and it allows beneficiaries to access a variety of free health services. This essay
will investigate the strength and weakness of Medicare and propose a solution that can be used to
improve the healthcare system.
The strength of Australian Healthcare System
The main strength of the Australian healthcare system is Medicare. Medicare funds
universal access to health care for Australians in all public hospitals. Specifically, Medicare
covers several services for free or at a small fee including access to doctors, specialist,
optometrists, dentists and a range of other medical professionals. Besides, Medicare allows
eligible persons to access to low-cost prescriptions. Another advantage of Medicare is that it
offers several benefits for private patients. For instance, a private patient can get up to 75%
refund of the Medicare Schedule charges for treatment and services (Humanservices.gov, 2017).
Medicare has increased the access to care by aged adults significantly. Medicare has improved
Primary Health Care (PHC) in Australia leading to more hospital visits and reduction in the cost
of care in rural areas. Remote communities have access to high-quality PHC, the number of
general practitioners (GPs) and nurse practitioners (NPs) has increased in remote areas due to
funding through Medicare. As a result, there is equitable service delivery (Wakerman et al.,
2017).