Existing healthcare system and policy

As far as the healthcare system of Australia is concerned, it can be stated that the framework is largely complex and divided into the federal and state government initiatives for funding and taking responsibilities. From an apparent perspective, the Australian healthcare system is an effective model that efficiently increases the life expectancy of the Australian people emphatically and as a result of that the country is known to be the sixth highest in the world with an expectancy ratio of 82.2 per year (Health.gov.au 2018). However, from time immemorial the Australian government had faced a series of challenges regarding the formulation of its healthcare policy. Issues like obesity and illegal substance abuse or developing the private healthcare facility there are still success yet to be achieved. In addition to this, the political ambition and immense pressure from the interest groups are also perturbed the situation extensively.

Based on this understanding, the purpose of this essay is to analyse and evaluate the success and failure of the Australian healthcare policy. In this context, the discussion primarily develops its arguments on the basis of the theoretical perspectives and conducts a great deal of investigation on the erstwhile researches to identify the gaps in understanding the challenges. Therefore, the essay at first points out the literature reviews and emphasises on the existing healthcare system prevalent in Australia. After that the adequate decisions that the Australian government has taken are also incorporated into the discussion. Finally, the report will conclude with a recommendation.

Existing healthcare system and policy

Healthcare system

The Australian healthcare system is very large and complex in nature because it is divided into a number of different departments and segments. For an instance, both the federal and the state government are responsible to take healthcare policies in their own terms. However, those policies should not contradict one another. Besides the public or government initiatives, the private healthcare service providing institutions are also interested to foster quality healthcare services and committed to ensure better and healthy life to the Australian people (Health.gov.au 2018). In addition to this, it can be stated that the Australian government also encourages interested parties to conduct advanced research related to the customer care, doctors, nurses and pharmacists so that all the actors can contribute equally for the benefit of the healthcare system in Australia. In fact, the Australian government is also entitled to put a deep concern over the safety and quality of the health care and side by side introduces the National Health Performance Authority to collect and retrieve data regarding the development of Australian healthcare status and helps to find out the threats that have to be resolved on priority basis. The community engagement program is also incorporated into the healthcare framework to facilitate a transparent mechanism (Privatehealth.gov.au 2018).

As per the government initiatives it can be stated that the Australian government puts a deep concern over the integration of the local and regional healthcare system with the national healthcare policy framework. In response to this, a person-centred healthcare service system has been initiated through the Fifth National Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Plan. In this context, a relevant and optimistic feature of the Australian healthcare policy framework is to amend its existing system with the changing situation and challenges (Bovens, M. and Hart 2017). Moreover, it is also coupled with advising and guiding the regional and local hospitals and healthcare facilities to move towards the right direction. In addition to this, the government also puts emphasis on the aboriginal Australians and encompasses a detailed plan for safeguarding their lives. Prevention of chronic diseases like yellow fever or influenza and also the international epidemics like Zika virus or AIDS are also incorporated into the plan of the Australian government (McConnell 2016). Furthermore, the metal illness is also considered to be a matter of great concern for the Commonwealth healthcare framework in order to reduce incidents like suicides. Both the children and the adults are covered into the plan and community based activities are initiated largely. From that point of view, the Australian healthcare policy is based on a sound basis.

Literature review

According to Duckett and Willcox (2015) it can be argued that the Australian healthcare system has a number of mainstream practice that are entitled to deal with the health related threats and challenges. As the Australian government puts emphasis on the betterment of the health of the citizens therefore it becomes a pertinent matter for the healthcare policy. Adequate treatment and diagnosis facilities are located all over the country that are responsible to deal with these epidemic situation. In response to this both the private and public institutions and organisations are responsible to deal with the healthcare issues. Moreover, the regional and national frameworks are entitled to work with it.

On the other hand, Shanahan et al. (2015) advocated that the healthcare system in Australia is a very complex and long drawn process that incorporates both the public and private authorities. Therefore, intense pressure from the private organisation and in national platform is considered to be imposed a great deal of pressure for the Australian healthcare policy and system robustly. In addition to this, the incorporation of the technological mechanism is identified as one of the major step that the Australian government has taken in order to establish an international standard of healthcare facility. The healthcare policy is also stapled with the new changes and committed to deliver a beneficial healthcare environment in the country.

Besides this, Jansson, Dixon and Hatcher (2017) opined that the Australian healthcare policy is coupled with a number of national and international organisations that help to establish a better healthcare policy framework. From that point of view, important organisations like Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW), the Australian productive Commission and international organisations like OECD and World Bank played significant role in order to not only provide financial assistance but also aiding technological support accordingly (Mitchell et al. 2015). As far as the policy framework of the Australian Healthcare and Hospitals Association it can be argued that the purpose is to make a link between the local and regional healthcare facilities which is intertwined with the healthcare policy statement prefaced by the Australian government.

As a matter of fact, Carter et al. (2015) advocated that the adverse impact and emerging threat of the drug abuse compelled the Australian government to initiate certain measures to deal with the issue. Hence, the legislative body of Australia with the help of the healthcare agencies sets a drug policy guide with the timeline of 2030 with the motive to reduce the practice quite extensively. As a matter of fact, the National Drug Strategy of Australia has a prolong tradition and history and this was not the first time that the government wanted to prevent drug use. However, with the change in course the government prioritises its demands and procuring more effective measures to eradicate the problem properly.

Furthermore, the healthcare policy in Australia keeps an eye on the insurance facilities provided to the Australian citizens. In this context, the newest rendition is related to the role of the private healthcare insurances with two purpose. One is related to the redeeming the burden that the Australian public healthcare facilities have suffered with and the other point is associated with the role to make more effective healthcare measures for the Australian citizens (Greenhalgh et al. 2016).

In this context, it can be stated that the government decision making has played a significant role to deal with the changing health condition of the Australian people. In this regard, there are some common healthcare problems that the Australian government is suffering with. In this regard, obesity is considered to be one of the major factor that pushed the government to take adequate decisions. In this regard, the government report highlighted that more than 60% of the Australian adults were suffered with serious obesity related problems (Xia et al. 2015). As a matter of fact, the risks of obesity has increased among the Australian children as well and at least 10% of the children are suffering with this disease. As a matter of fact, the OECD report illustrates that Australia ranked 4^th according to the 2015 data with a rate of 26.9% of the population (Mueller et al. 2015). Besides this, the problems of drug abuse is also escalating in rapid manner that in 2016 the government report reflected that there are around 3.1 million Australians who are using illicit drugs. In case of the mental illness also the statistics is very high with an amount of 45% of the Australians have mental illness program (Gainsbury et al. 2014). However, the government has some other health related issues that require to address more effectively.

In this context, the newest adaption in the Australian healthcare policy is related to the reduction of the private healthcare insurance interests for the Australian adults with the purpose to increase the popularity of the private healthcare facilities as almost 90% Australians are still relied on the public healthcare privileges (Lancaster and Ritter 2014). As a result of that it becomes a huge pressure for the public healthcare facilities to deal with the dire situation. Therefore, the government tries to change the course of the process by incorporating the private healthcare facilities more aggressively to make a better healthcare framework. In this regard, the healthcare expenditure among the Australian people has grown in a rampant pace from $40 billion overall expenditure in 1986 to more than $140 billion in the year 2013 and this process is still continuing (Chen et al. 2014). In this context, the Australian government has to intervene and takes decision accordingly to provide the Australian people quality healthcare facilities with less expenses. This is considered to be a benevolent approach for the Australian government and expected to generate more benefits for the Australian people. Moreover, it can be argued that the Australian government puts more focus on the adult generation with an age between 19 and 40 in order to ensure a healthy next generation (Hemsley et al. 2014).

Despite all those efforts it can be argued that the Australian government is suffering with a number of health related issues that are essentially be resolved in an urgent basis.

Implementation of technology tools in healthcare facilities require a bulk of expenses. However, in the 21^st century it is important for the countries to incorporate technology in their healthcare system with the purpose to maintain the international standard. The role of bulk of investment requires private intervention with the existence of the public organisations. However, in case of Australia the government keeps less focus on the private organisations and the healthcare policies do little to meet the interests of the private healthcare institutions (Savic et al. 2016). Besides this, the continual cost and diffusion of technology requires an in-depth budgetary in order to execute the process effectively but in Australia there are inadequate mechanism for this.

As far as the medical insurance process in Australia is concerned, it can be asserted that the country has a complex process in case of insurance because both private and public healthcare insurances are existed into the market. As most of the Australians are like to choose public healthcare facilities rather than the private ones (Swan 2015). This trend is also seen in case of choosing healthcare insurance. Moreover, the private health insurances are overpriced so that it is obvious for the people to choose for the public health insurances (Cunningham and Regan 2017). Moreover, the newly introduced rebate in the private healthcare insurance is also limited for the young adults. The aged Australians are still deprived of such measure and as a result of that the government will fail to promote the private insurances as well.

In this context, it can be stated that there was a change in the demography of Australia where 14% of the population is more than the age of 60. It was estimated that the number will escalated up to 21% in the 2015 (Lyle and Greenhill 2018). In response to this, the Australian government does not address any amendments in its foreign policy for the benefits of the aged groups. Moreover, there are substantial changes for the benefit of the aged people and fear of voter backlash affected the healthcare policy procured by the Australian government.

The recommendations are as follows,

• It is important for the Australian government to ensure equal privileges for all the citizens living and working in Australia. In response to this, amending the healthcare policy with better framework will be considered as an important aspect for the Australian government.
• As there are discrepancies and problems vested in the relationship between the public and private healthcare agencies therefore it is important for the Australian government to procure a better policy framework that encompasses all the healthcare facilities irrespective of having public or private status. Moreover, an unique system for the entire healthcare system is also needed in order to deal with the challenges more effectively.
• Increasing trend of the expenditure in healthcare is not an optimistic trend for the Australian healthcare system. The government surely takes some measures to curb down the cost of private healthcare insurances but at the same time it is also important to redeem the overall costs of treatment and surgeries especially for the age old persons.
• Putting more emphasis on the aboriginal community is also considered to be an important aspect on which the Australian government must levy more emphasis. In this context, implementing specific policy framework for the aboriginal Australians can be contributed more and facilitate a better Australian healthcare policy.

Conclusion

From the above discussion, it can be stated that apparently the Australian healthcare system has a solid base to deliver better healthcare facility for the people. As a matter of fact, going with the trend the Australian government also sets some policy to implement technological medical practices on a robust manner in order to reduce the errors and provide quality healthcare services. In this context, it can also be asserted that the healthcare policy of Australia is rightly adapt new strategies with the change in the situation and prioritise the issues on the basis of intensity. Therefore, it becomes an effective tool to increase the life expectancy of the people.

Despite of all the efforts it can be argued that there are some serious flaws inside the healthcare policy of the Australian government that failed to reduce the health related expenses and incompetent to identify the target patients based on the age factors. As a result of that the purpose of the Australian health policy is partially successful and it requires further researches to deal with this fundamental problem. In fact, the government shows some biasness while targeting the possible patients. From that point of view, it can be concluded that due to having a good healthcare policy the Australian government should resolve the fundamental problems that help it to become one of the great healthcare system around the world.

References

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