It’s nice that the Federal Government has given a gong to Pat McGorry, but our country’s commitment to psychiatric treatment remains at the level of mere lip service. I read with interest a recent newspaper article reporting on the Federal Government’s scheme for giving subsidies to private psychologists. This program began in 2006, in response to widespread evidence of a ‘crisis’ in mental health. Psychiatric problems constituted a vast percentage of overall health burden in Australia, yet were systematically under-funded (in proportional terms). The then-Howard Government arranged for psychologists operating in private practice to be subject to Medicare rebates for the first time. The aim here was to allow the private system to pick up the slack for an over-burdened public system. These are the results:
More >> Mental health and markets: two kinds of failure
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