Medicare in Australia: A Comprehensive Overview

MEDICARE IN AUSTRALIA

INTRODUCTION
 Welfare systems and policies are government
programs extended to the citizens in line with a
particular criteria or need, to improve the need or
particular condition (Dwyer, Shaw 2013). This is
usually through offering of incentives or
payments to that particular group either directly
or by funding of services they are entitled to.

 There are numerous welfare systems in Australia
covering a cross section of the citizens, but some of
the majorly known ones are Medicare, Centrelink
which offers payments to the retired, unemployed
the disabled and students among other vulnerable
members of the society, and Veteran affairs which
offers welfare policies for members of defence units
in Australia and their dependents. They are
government funded with a national budget allocated
to them and are accessible by the Australian citizens
and permanent residents(Dwyer, Shaw 2013) .
 Medicare will be the welfare policy on focus in this
presentation:

BRIEF HISTORY OF MEDICARE
 Medicare was conceived from Medibank, a health
insurance plan which had started being
developed in 1972 as a bill by the Whitlam Labor
Government and kicked its official operations in
1975. This was in response to the large
population of Australians mostly low income
earners, who lacked health risks cover. Medibank
was thus renamed Medicare in the year 1984
after several amendments in health related acts
were passed (Willis, Reynolds & Keleher 2012).