Analysis of the Australian Healthcare System: A Comparative Report

This report provides a comprehensive evaluation of the Australian healthcare system, focusing on its financial structure and performance in comparison to the healthcare systems of the United Kingdom and the United States. It examines the funding mechanisms, including government contributions through Medicare and other sources, and analyzes expenditure patterns, such as the proportion of GDP allocated to healthcare. The report delves into performance measures, comparing Australia's outcomes in areas like surgical interventions, obesity rates, and access to care with those of other OECD countries. It highlights both strengths, such as expenditure on subsidized medicine, and weaknesses, such as challenges in addressing obesity and providing equitable access. The report also explores the financial implications of these performance measures, the challenges faced by the Australian healthcare system, and offers recommendations for improvement, such as updating insurance schemes and increasing funding in key areas.

Running head: AUSTRALIAN HEALTHCARE SYSTEM
AUSTRALIAN HEALTHCARE SYSTEM
Name of Student:
Name of University:
Author’s Note:

1AUSTRALIAN HEALTHCARE SYSTEM
Executive summary
The main aim of the report to is evaluate the financial structure of health care system of Australia
by comparing it with other OCED countries which includes United Kingdom and Unites States.
The health care system of Australia is spends its 8.5% of the total GDP in providing health
service, which is low when compared to United Kingdom and Unites States health care system.
The main funding body of health care system of Australia is both governmental and non-
governmental body. On comparison with financial structure of United Kingdom and Unites
States, it was known that in some measures they are good like in number of equipment and
number of surgeries. However, it was also evaluated that due to poor investment strategy, high
rate of obesity in Australia and low number of physician are major challenge faced by the health
care system.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Comparison of the financial structure of the Australian healthcare system....................................3
Comparison of performance of Australian health care system with other OCED countries...........4
Performance measure of Australian healthcare system...................................................................5
Financial implication for Australian healthcare system..................................................................6
Challenges faced by the Australian healthcare system....................................................................6
Recommendation.............................................................................................................................7
Reference.........................................................................................................................................9

3AUSTRALIAN HEALTHCARE SYSTEM
Introduction
The primary aim of the report is to compare and contrast the Australian healthcare system
to the health care system of the United States and the United Kingdom. The report includes, the
performance and financial structure of the Australian healthcare system, its financial implication,
and challenges in providing equitable access to care and recommendations for improvement of
the Australian healthcare system.
Comparison of the financial structure of the Australian healthcare system.
Health care system of Australia is funded by the Australian government and territory
government through Medicare which accounts for 67%. However, it is also funded by another
level of government like NGO, private health insurance or individual. Australia's health system
is supported by Medicare that is funded by governmental body by mean of taxation and 2%
Medicare levy (Health expenditure Australia, 2017). By contrast United Kingdom, the health
care system is funded by the separate parliament and government in collaboration with private
sector and voluntary provision of each countries (Stockdale et al., 2017). However, United States
health care system is subsidized by the combination of payroll taxes, federal general revenue
through Medicare (Papanicolas, Woskie & Jha, 2018). The health care system of UK is known as
National Health Service are funded by general taxation. It is known to spend 8.5% of GDP in
health sector (Wiysonge et al., 2017). However, Australia spends 10.3% of GDP and US is
among the highest rank to spend 11.6% of GDP in health care system. In the year 2013-2014 the
health budget was £110 billion in which 64.9% was spend in health service (Health expenditure
Australia, 2017). It is evident from the report of 2015-2016 that Australia, $170 billion was
invested in health care in which 67% was levied by government and 33% by the NGO. 17% of

4AUSTRALIAN HEALTHCARE SYSTEM
the total health expenditure was funded by the individual and 8.8% by the private health insurers
(Health expenditure Australia, 2017). When compared with US health care system, 49% of
spending is done by public and rest by Medicare (Papanicolas, Woskie & Jha, 2018). Australia
generally provides funding for subsidized medicine and medical service. Whereas in UK and US
the funding is done mostly for the health care service.
Comparison of performance of Australian health care system with other
OCED countries
Reviewing the working of health care system of Australia, it is also a member of OCED
countries and follows the standards for the quality measure. Taking it into account, Australia’s
health care system, it spends only 9.4% of the Gross Domestic Product which the lowest among
the OCED country of UK and US, which spends 10.6% and 11.9% of GDP in health care system
(OECD Statistics, 2019). It spends 40% of the total expenditure on hiring high number of
physician, which accounts to 3.39% per 1000 people (OECD Statistics, 2019). When compared
with the UK and US, they rank 22th and 14th, which is below Australia. The financial structure of
the Australian system spends huge amount of capital in the health care equipment. It has the
highest number of MRI machines when compared to UK and US. However, concerning
performance, it has the lowest MRI exam because the majority of the funds are spent in
subsidized medicine (Australia institute of health and welfare, 2018). When compared with
financial structure of the US and UK, they mostly focus on the quality workforce, and they have
good number of MRI examination. When hospital utilisation spending, utilisation and capacity is
compared with OCED countries of UK and US, it can be said that Australia spends low money in
acute care setting related to number of bed than US which spends 12.8% of expenditure in
quality of acute care. It is high when compared to UK, as they spend 4.6% less amount of total

5AUSTRALIAN HEALTHCARE SYSTEM
spending than Australia (OECD Statistics, 2019). From the study of Glover (2016), it can be
said that Australia highest expenditure is done in musculoskeletal complication and spends less
in injuries, however, UK financial structure spends mostly on mental health and US spends on
obesity which is common in these countries (Eckelman & Sherman, 2018). In Australia, the most
prevalent illness is diabetes and obesity, and Australia spends only 5% in such illness which has
caused an increase in health burden of this illness. Thus, it can be said that the performance of
financial structure of health care system of Australia needs to get improve for better health of the
population (Rajan, Barroy & Stenberg, 2016).
Performance measure of Australian healthcare system
Australia performs good and or equal to UK and US country in some range of
performance measures. Australia is accomplishing well in the expenditure of the surgical
intervention and in implementing preventive measure for lowering the smoking rate. The
financial structure of Australia’s health care system is good in area of general treatment which is
covered by non-medical health service that includes physiotherapy, dental and optical service.
However, it is poor in terms of expenditure on programme of obesity control. As a consequence,
Australia has highest rate of obesity than UK and US which accounts to 28.3% of peoples with
obesity as compared to only 19% and 18.7% obesity rate of UK and US respectively
(Buchmueller & Johar, 2015). It is reported in the study of Dixit and Sambasivan (2018) that
Australia spends highest amount of money in the medicine and drugs, which is the major reason
for health improvement of the indigenous population. It is also performing good in treatment for
hepatitis C as it is spending around $1.7 billion on a new treatment and compared to US and UK
they are also spending near but less amount than Australia for treatment of Hepatitis C

6AUSTRALIAN HEALTHCARE SYSTEM
(Dieleman et al., 2016). In such performance measure, it is carrying out equally as compared
with OCED country of UK and US.
Financial implication for Australian healthcare system
Addressing the performance and working of health care system of Australia, the financial
implication to those measures can be put forward for better evaluation. It is evident from the
report of The Commonwealth Fund (2019) that Australia is spending $7,400 per person in the
year 2016-2017. When compared to UK and US, it spends $5097 and $7568 per person which is
nearly same to Australia health care system. However, in terms of obesity rate, it ranks highest
(Health policy in Australia, 2017). The primary reason is less low expenditure in the area of diet
maintenance. Another OCED country like UK and US, they majorly focus on their prevalent
disease like mental illness (Moberly, 2017). UK spends huge money on curative and
rehabilitation care and home setting. Thus, it gives financial implication to the health care system
of Australia as it is noted though the country is spending more. However, they are not addressing
the priority area.
Challenges faced by the Australian healthcare system
It is noted that Australia spends a considerable sum in surgical intervention; hence, it has
the highest number of successful knee replacement surgery. The major reason is expenditure of
$69 billion in hospital and equipment (OECD Statistics, 2019). This finding gives implication to
work on the quality of physical examination test. In UK though number of MRI machine is low
than Australia, they have good and high number of qualifying exams. In US, the health care
system focus on hiring good health care professional, which has improved rate of successful

7AUSTRALIAN HEALTHCARE SYSTEM
diagnosis of illness (Hepburn et al., 2015). Therefore, health care system should spend huge sum
of money in hiring high number of health care professional.
There are various barrier in the health care system of Australia in providing equitable
access to care to the people of UK and US. It is seen in the study of Callander, Corscadden and
Levesque (2017) that the financial structure of Australia health care system does not have the
scheme to provide health insurance to the people of other countries including UK and US. They
are itself limited in this ground as it covers only 44% of the Australian population (Australia
institute of health and welfare, 2018). The federal government provided funds to Medicare which
is the public health insurance program aims to provide subsided and free access to care for only
Australian citizen and people with permanent visa. The people of UK and US does not have
access to Medicare. The major reason is that Medicare is funded by government through tax
system. Other challenges can be inferred by the study of Stockdale et al. (2017) which highlights
that people of US and UK people are higher risk of metabolic disease and they do not have
access to equal care like Australian people because of higher cost and financial burden in health
care system. For giving equal responsibility to the resident of UK and US, which is culturally
different, the health care system has to spend capital in training and hiring more workforce.
However, Australia pays maximum sum in medicine, interventions and equipment which does
not enough sum for training staffs for patient of UK and US. By giving equal care to them, there
will be high health care cost in diagnostic and therapeutic advances. Thus, as Medicare funds it,
they face a challenge in listing those in PBS, which tends to increase the cost of community
(Willis, Reynolds & Keleher, 2016).

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Recommendation
1. Australian health care system should update the insurance scheme by Medicare and
include indigenous peoples. It is reported that they do not have equal access to health
service, by providing health insurance, they would be able to get contemporary health
service.
2. The health care system should increase its expenditure in the area of MRI exam and
assessment.
3. More consideration should be paid in high rate of obesity and increase their funding in
care of obese patient.

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