Big private health insurers are snapping up GP clinics and pushing telehealth 'deals' that sound cheap for their members—but this is the tip of the iceberg toward full US-style managed care in Australia.
With Medicare rebates already too low and a GP shortage biting, insurers can lure doctors away with better pay, leaving everyone else with fewer options and longer waits.
The result? Less patient choice, insurer-directed referrals to their own networks, and practitioners able to charge patients more out-of-pocket as bulk billing erodes and a two-tier system takes hold. Profits over people—classic. We need stronger guardrails to protect universal Medicare, not let corporate capture make healthcare even more expensive and unequal.

#medicare #healthcareforall #aussiepolitics #auspol

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-30/major-insurers-buying-up-gp-clinics-could-be-tip-of-managed-care/106491728

Australian politicians condemned Pauline Hanson’s anti-Muslim comments, but refused to say if she should apologize—because in politics, the only thing more dangerous than hate speech is taking an actual position.

https://polititoons.com/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=polititoons_organic

#politics #satire #humor #politicalhumor #PoliticalSatire #AussiePolitics #HateSpeechDebate

#introduction Looking forward to meeting like and unlike souls on mastodon.

Here's some of the stuff that interests me:

#QuantumPhysics
#Cosmology
#Astronomy
(all of the above for non-scientists!)
#ClassicalMusic
#Bonnie Raitt
#AussiePolitics
#scifi
#woodworking
#gardening
#CriminalJustice
#birdwatching
#comics (especially non-fiction - I'm working on a graphic adaptation of Dead Man Walking)
#photography