Private Healthcare Australia's recent suggestion that private health insurers should be allowed to manage the funding and provision of taxpayer funded dental services on behalf of the Australian Government, has been described by the ADA as completely delusional. Such a suggestion to corporatise Medicare by putting it in the hands of the likes of BUPA would be seen as reckless if adopted by any government.
Private health insurance premiums have, for some time, risen at two to three times that of the Consumer Price Index (CPI). That's above wage increases and even above the rise in energy prices which has been described as a national crisis. In the same time period, rebates for services have been stagnant and gaps have been growing at a concerning rate.
This is in addition to how appallingly small community-based business owners are treated by large insurance corporations when the patients aren't looking and the way health insurance corporations are trawling through individual patient records without regard for the privacy of the patient -dentist relationship.
Differential rebates also remain a problem, being used by insurers to exert control over patient choice of dentist, with the ultimate aim of restricting options for patients if they are considered by health insurance corporations to be at a price beyond what large corporations want patients to have.
Australian Dental Association Federal President, Dr Carmelo Bonanno today said "Dentists don't trust private health insurance corporations, which have lost the trust of health professionals, just as they are rapidly losing the trust of all Australians".
Medicare, on the other hand, has demonstrated an ability to be both transparent and open to public scrutiny. Medicare management is regularly questioned during Senate Estimates and they are ultimately accountable to the Australian Parliament. By way of contrast, insurance corporations like BUPA are so opaque that the Australian Tax Office has had trouble getting them to pay the right amount of tax while the royal commission into aged care could potentially shine a light on BUPA's practices in the aged care business, particularly given how many of their facilities have faced government imposed sanctions.
Is it really wise to have taxpayer funded dental care for Australians provided by the same global corporation?
The Australian Dental Association sees Private Healthcare Australia's statement as nothing more than an arrogant grab for money in the face of the Grattan report which has suggested better public funding for dental services. If this were to occur, health insurance corporations would see one of their most profitable areas removed from them.
Dr Bonanno today said "government must not outsource its responsibilities to the Australian people to corporations. It must not destroy Medicare by stealth, and it must not take seriously an attempt by health insurance corporations to profit from government funds that should go directly to the Australian people to help them access dental services".
