Public perceptions of Australia’s doctors, hospitals and health care systems

To the Editor: I read with interest the article by Hardie and Critchley, in which the authors attempted to measure attitudes towards both Australia’s current health care system, and shifts to greater public or private funding of health care.1 The article’s finding that pro-public funding attitudes were greatly favoured over pro-private funding attitudes may in fact be more of a reflection of the leading nature of the authors’ pro-private statements than of the true attitudes of the 800 study participants. Most Australians, regardless of their views on public versus private funding of health care, would be unlikely to support the statements “Australia should adopt a private, user-pays system like they have in the [United States]” and “The very best health care should be available only to those who can afford it”.1

The results are certainly not consistent with the findings from the 2007 Ipsos Health Care and Insurance study2 — a survey with more than 5300 participants and a solid 20-year history, which is supported by governments (Commonwealth and state/territory), private providers and industry associations. This study found that just over half of respondents (52%) supported full government funding of Australia’s health care system, while 42% opposed such a funding approach. In fact, more than 20% of respondents “disagreed a lot” with the proposal that “All hospital and medical costs should be met out of government revenue — the taxes we all pay — people should not have to pay anything directly”.2

The Ipsos results suggest there is still significant diversity of views on how Australia’s health care system should be funded and, importantly, these results do not support the conclusion of Hardie and Critchley that Australians “overwhelmingly favour a more socially responsive public health system, funded by the public purse”.