Dinglinga75 wrote:Is ramping increasing due to less bulk bill doctors being available , so next best thing for no cost is to go to hospital and cog up the system there
That's is a factor but the central issue is the lack of available beds to use to clear patients out of the EDs, so that those in the Ambulances can be brought into the ED.
There are two issues in the limited availability of GP care:
1. The Medicare rebate has risen by only 65% of inflation each year and that includes the years when the old Medibank was the precursor of Medicare starting in 1975. (In my early private practice days I used to bulk bill all pensioners and all the unemployed but by 1987 could no longer afford to do so due to rising overheads.)
2. Until recent years one could become a GP by completing two years as a Resident Medical Officer in a major hospital and then joining a general practice under the supervision of the more senior partners. These days becoming a GP requires a multiple year post-graduate training scheme just like becoming a specialist. Guess what - back then 50% of medical graduates became GPs and now only 14% do.
If you have to put in the same training time you may as well go into the top specialties...
Between Medibank and the coming of Medicare Malcolm Fraser had a good idea - he allowed private health funds to pay some of the difference between the government approved rebate and the standard practice fee - but the next ALP government killed that off, privatised Medibank, and started up Medicare.