The Australian health care system is a mixed system of both private and government sectors. The Government sector includes the Medicare system and the Pharmaceutical Benefit Scheme (PBS). The private sector includes private health insurance. The international health care system of North Korea, United States of America is compared with Australia in ethical, economic and political characteristics.
Medicare is a free health insurance scheme financed by the Commonwealth and partially by Medicare Levy, which provides subsidised health care services to the Australian population. It provides services like hospital services for public patients in public hospitals by bulk billing through the Australian Health Care agreements with the States, subsidises private patients for hospital services (75 per cent of the Medicare Schedule fee) and provides benefits for out-of-hospital medical services such as consultations with GPs or specialists (85 per cent of the Medicare Schedule fee). Some practitioners may charge more than the scheduled fee, then the patients pay extra out-of-pocket amount called gap payment. (Biggs, 2004). A person has to pay 2% of the taxable income if they are earning above a certain threshold, which is called Medicare Levy. (Australian Government Australain Taxation Office, 2016) …show more content…
Under the rule of the labor party, Australia has a health care system which provides free health services to the citizens through Medicare. The labour party is focuses on stopping the increasing rates of prescription costs and is in support of the free health care system. The liberal party is in opposition to this idea and aims to privatise Medicare which is not ethical as health is a basic human right and should be accessible to the people who are financially poor and cannot afford the health care services. (Chifleyresearch Centre,