Health Care Welfare: Factors Affecting Wellbeing and Government Policies in Australia

This paper discusses the factors affecting wellbeing and government policies in Australia regarding health care welfare. It covers contextual factors, determinants frameworks, and the interlink between health, wellbeing, and welfare.

Welfare

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Welfare refers to the situation of doing well from the good fortune, happiness,
well-being, and prosperity (Pigou, 2017). Thus, it can be said that both terms Welfare and
Wellbeing is similar in use. According to an organisation for Economic co-operations and
Development, Well-being is a multidimensional covering aspect of life ranging from civic
engagement to housing, skills to health status and household income to work-life balance
(Michalos, 2017). There are many factors will be discussed in this paper which affects the
situation of wellbeing. At the individual level, behaviour, attitudes, knowledge, and the
responses to life events are the factors which affect the Wellbeing situation. In this paper, the
discussion will be made that how the Australian government provides the services at broader
scale, education, employment, secure housing, safety and community networks are the factors
which affect the situation.
Different phases of life help to determine an individual health. The
circumstance in which a person grow, live, work and deal with the illness are the elements
which help to determine an individual health. It can be said that these phases of life are the
contributors of Wellbeing. These phases are affected by the external environment like social
and economic forces. Theses both forces change the circumstance of a person’s life and also
shaped their life as per the government direction and policies. Policies of government affect
an individual life as well as the broader population of an economy. Australian federated
governing system divides the responsibilities to the different level of government agencies
(Duckett, & Willcox, 2015). These government agencies face the problems in trying to fulfil
the requirement of the population. Changes in the population demographics, Change in the
nature of the Australian workforce, government fiscal constraints and the housing
affordability issues are the challenges which are face by the government agency. Australian
government support the welfare by providing the funds and donations to the society and
companies (Osborn, Squires, Doty, Sarnak, & Schneider, 2016). Australian government made

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the policies to take care of health of the poor people. It provides the fund to support the
universal services such as housing, employment, disability person and aged care. Australian
government continuously moves towards the more comprehensive policies and programs
which help to take care of wellbeing of an individual. The government organise the events
and seminars for providing the necessary facilities to poor people, it also organises the health
check-up events. Till now the discussion is made on the government policies that have
positive affect on the individual welfare. But in the next phase, the conceptual framework is
discussed in the context of Wellbeing.
The framework identifies the principle of contextual factors such as socio-
demographic trends, general economic conditions and policy setting influence the allocation
of workforce availability and welfare expenditure. Contextual factors help the people to their
basic needs which promote the healthy environment such as open spaces, clean footpaths and
clean parks to promote the healthy behaviour such as walking and physical activity (Willis,
Reynolds, & Keleher, 2016). Determinants frameworks affect a person’s well-being; thus, it
can be said that Determinants framework plays an important role in an individual wellbeing.
Determinants factors affect negatively and positively of a person wellbeing (Steptoe, Deaton,
& Stone, 2015). For example- A strong bond in the family has a positive impact on personal
wellbeing. It protects the family member from needing welfare services by providing them
with the physical, emotional, and financial sources. The support will be a breakdown when
the family bond is getting faded. There are many determinants that have positive and negative
directions such as social networks have positive and negative effects. Positive interactions
enhance the self-esteem and support emotionally. Negative interaction is the reason for
poorer mental health. Health, wellbeing and welfare are the factors which are strongly
interconnected with each other. In the next phase of the report, the discussion will be made on
the health, welfare and wellbeing.

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Health, wellbeing and welfare are the three terms which are highly interlinked
with each other. According to the World Health Organisation, a person who is mentally, and
physical fit is called healthy person. It can be said that the health status is interlinked with an
individual wellbeing status (World Health Organization, 2014). A positive mental health is
the state of wellbeing which is reflected in his abilities. A positive mind can easily cope up
with its stresses of life and it can do his work productively and fruitfully. A positive mind is
developed with the positive thinking; which can be developed when a person physically fit
and live in a healthy environment. When a person in a state when he feels healthy and it does
not have any diseases, then he starts to give its contribution to the society (Meara, et al.,
2015).
Australia’s income support payments are funded from government revenue; there is no
revenue system which is partly funded by the employees and employers to the finance
system. Australia payment system uses the process which provides the benefits. Testing
checked the resources that are focused to help the supporting people with the lower income
and fewer assets. Australia is the highest means testing, it contributes the 80% cash benefits
on the social services to provide the welfare to people such as Age pension and man more
(Bloom, et al., 2015). Australia transfer system also differs from the other countries because
it transfers payments from general revenue to these services instead of relies on contributions
such as security system.
From the above analysis, it has been concluded that Welfare services are
provided by the government to poor people. It helps the families and individual by providing
the services indirectly to help the others at the time of emergency. The theoretical framework
also defines the principles which affect the environment whether positively or negatively. It
has been seen that health, welfare and wellbeing are the same terms for use. Health states the
person who is physically fit and mentally stable for the work and it should be diseases free. In

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Australia, the funded system is different from the other countries to provide the services for
the welfare of Australia.

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