The National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission received several hundred submissions and commissioned 24 discussion papers, one background paper and published 15 reports of consultations.
Out of all that input, it might be interesting to look at whose views really counted, when it came to developing one of the most contentious recommendations, for Medicare Select.
The Commissioners noted that those who particularly “influenced and contributed to our thinking on this issue” included:
• Mary Foley – who wrote an NHHRC discussion paper, ‘A Mixed Public-Private System for 2020′, available here. Foley has a background in the corporate health sphere as well as government and the not-for-profit sector.
• Judith Dwyer and Kathy Eagar (health policy academics) who wrote an NHHRC discussion paper ‘Options for reform of Commonwealth and State governance responsibilities for the Australian health system’. Mary Foley also had input into this paper.
• Health economist Richard Scotton (2002), ‘Managed Competition in Health Care: workshop. Canberra
• Just Stoelwinder (a health services academic, also a director of Medibank Private). (2009), ‘Sustaining Medicare – lessons from the Netherlands’, public lecture at Menzies Centre for Health Policy, Canberra
• Health economists James Butler and Alexandra Sidorenko (2007), ‘Coping with the challenges of population ageing: Policy considerations for private sector involvement in aprivate health security pillar in a universal health system in APEC economies, Australian Centre for Economic Research on Health, Research Report No.2.
• Helen Owens, whose submission can be accessed here (it’s number 250).
Just for the record, the Commisioners noted that these people may not necessarily agree with the report’s views.
If that’s the Helen Owens who is from KPMG and was on Productivity Commission, then she is on the Board of Southern Health in metro Melbourne.
Stoelwinder and Dwyer were at Southern Health, where a shelter company – Kitaya Holdings – preserves some important commercial operations, including Jessie Macpherson private hospital, which is intimately co-located with Monash Medical Centre in Clayton.
“Do you have private health insurance?”
It will be interesting to compare costs for common procedures, like coronary stenting and joint replacements, in both institutions. It would be interesting to know whether those surgeons who make decisions on costs (like hardware) for Southern Health declare their associations with private hospitals as conflicts of interests.
Drifting onto the Identity issue, a recent paper by Jesper Johansson explains why “There is huge value in being the identity provider and no value at all in being the relying party.”
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/magazine/2009.06.securitywatch.aspx
If Medicare is going to be the Health Identity provider, it will accumulate data that’s of huge commercial value. Pharmaceutical companies may wish, instead, to gather data on medications separately, by their own broker, so they can compete for it with their own peers at rates they can be agreed upon.
So, it’s curious that DoHA has chosen to not publish submissions to the
Call for submissions: Healthcare identifiers and privacy legislative proposals
http://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/pacd-ehealth-consultation
when there ought to be a lot of public interest in sharing all kinds of concerns, technical and social.