Photo above: Not only have the rates of bulk billings by GPs dropped over the last few years, over a much longer period, the average out-of-pocket costs paid by patients for GP visits have been soaring.
Photo credit: RACGP

UNVEILING CAPITALIST EXPLOITATION:
A CALL FOR REVOLUTIONARY
HEALTHCARE REFORM IN AUSTRALIA

FOR TRULY FREE,
UNIVERSAL PUBLIC
HEALTH CARE IN AUSTRALIA

27 April 2024: Australia’s healthcare system is now facing a critical juncture marked by the exploitation of public health, aged care, and the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) budgets by capitalist tycoons. We call for nothing less than a class struggle strategy consisting of the expropriation and socialisation of this country’s natural resources – which will fund a truly public healthcare system. Such measures, alongside bringing all healthcare services themselves into public hands, will ensure a healthcare system that provides free and universal healthcare, aged care and disability care for all.

This forms part of our strategy to combat the attacks by Australia’s ruling class – and the attacks of ruling classes throughout the capitalist world – on workers’ living standards; which the capitalist rulers have been assaulting through slashing real wages and jacking up the cost of living, eroding job security, undercutting access to bulk billing GPs and through undermining the nominally free, universal healthcare systems that countries like Australia claim to provide.

THE CRISIS IN HEALTHCARE

Despite the existence of Medicare, the out-of-pocket expenses for specialist fees, surgeries, essential medicine, and dental care continue to mount, leaving many Australians burdened with hefty bills. Even some tests and scans essential for very ill people – like advanced MRI scans needed for diagnosis of cancer patients – now cost hundreds of dollars in out of pocket expenses. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the gaps in the healthcare system with a disproportionate impact on those unable to afford private insurance. Long waiting times for essential treatments, like knee replacement surgery, further exacerbate the inequality within the healthcare system.

Working class people living in rural areas are being especially hit hard by the lack of truly free, universal public health care in this country. People living in many Australian rural regions have no access to bulk-billing GP services in their town, sometimes having to travel up to one hour out of town to access a bulk-billing GP. A 15 to 20 minute private billing GP consultation leaves patients $90 out of pocket (the gap between the cost and what Medicare covers)! Even a script over the phone costs $20. With food, electricity and other prices having already risen sky high, already squeezed rural workers, unemployed workers and pensioners are being ground down by these medical costs and the fact that like, in the rest of the country, dental costs are not covered by Medicare. Moreover, it is precisely those who need free medical care the most – those on the lowest incomes or who are seriously ill – that have the least access to the private transport often needed to travel long distances to reach a bulk billing doctor. Moreover, with petrol now regularly costing more than $2 a litre, the fuel costs of actually travelling to a bulk billing doctor is itself steep.

CAPITALIST EXPLOITATION IN
AUSTRALIA’S HEALTHCARE SYSTEM

The burgeoning out-of-pocket expenses for essential healthcare services can be traced back to the predatory practices of capitalist tycoons. Sonic Healthcare’s Michael Boyd and Chemist Warehouse owners Jack Gance and Mario Verrocchi are among those profiting massively from public funds allocated to health, aged care and NDIS. This exploitation has led to compromised services, increased costs for the public and the perpetuation of an unequal healthcare system.

POLITICAL INACTION AND THE ELUSIVE QUEST FOR A TRULY PUBLIC HEALTH SYSTEM

The right-wing Liberals make little secret of their wish for still greater privatisation and the further implementation of anti-working class “user pays” mechanisms for all social services. However, despite widespread acknowledgment of the flaws within the healthcare system, the ALP and the Greens also have no genuine commitment to the cause of establishing a truly public health system. Of course, neither party wants to trumpet this. Indeed, both the ALP and Greens verbally proclaim absolute loyalty to Medicare. That healthcare should be a free, publicly provided service is a principle supported by the ALP’s working class base and the Greens’ main support base amongst university students and other progressive-minded educated youth and middle-class professionals. But the truth is that while the ALP has been in office and when the Greens have been part of coalitions or de facto coalition governments with the ALP at federal or state level, their policies have been complicit in enabling the erosion of public ownership and control of health, aged care and disability care. This is in many ways little surprise. As parties that uphold the political order through which the capitalists rule, both the ALP and Greens have facilitated the privatisation that the capitalist economic system and the big-time capitalist exploiters demand in the era of fast-decaying, late-stage capitalism. It was the Hawke-Keating Labor governments that sold off the formerly publicly owned Commonwealth Bank and Qantas. Meanwhile, federal and state ALP governments have been just as complicit as the conservatives in the sell-off of public housing throughout this country over the last 25 years. As for the Greens, when they were part of a de facto coalition with Labor administering the federal government from 2010 to 2013, they helped oversee the final privatisation of Telstra begun under John Howard’s Liberals.

A CLASS STRUGGLE STRATEGY:
EXPROPRIATION AND SOCIALISATION
OF NATURAL RESOURCES

To address the systemic issues plaguing Australia’s healthcare system, a class struggle strategy is necessary. This strategy involves expropriation – the collective reclaiming of resources – and the socialisation of Australia’s natural wealth. By redirecting the profits generated from the mining, oil/gas and power sectors, currently flowing into the coffers of capitalist oligarchs, and dismantling the existing capitalist-driven structures, society will easily be able to fully fund a range of social services, including free and universal health care, aged care, disability care – and childcare! Secondly these services themselves should be brought into the administration of the state rather than profit-driven private entities. That way all public funds can be directed into the provision of these services vitally needed by the people rather than a big chunk of them being diverted into the pockets of capitalist profiteers.

CONFISCATING AUSTRALIA’S WEALTH:
MINING PROFITS AND BEYOND

Mining profits in Australia have reached unprecedented levels, with billionaires like Gina Rinehart and Andrew Forrest amassing vast fortunes. A class struggle strategy calls for the confiscation of these profits, challenging the capitalist ‘neoliberal’ narrative that has allowed a select few to benefit disproportionately. This requires the collective effort of Australia’s working class to redistribute the nation’s wealth, prioritising the collective needs of the people over the interests of a privileged few.

CREATING A WORKERS’ STATE: DEMOCRATIC CONTROL AND PUBLIC OWNERSHIP

We argue for the establishment of a workers’ state, founded on democratically elected working class councils. This state would wrest control from the hands of capitalist oligarchs and bring essential service sectors – including healthcare, aged care and disability care – as well as the commanding heights of the economy into public ownership. The collective wealth generated through this approach would be harnessed to ensure free, quality services for all, dismantling the structures of inequality characteristic of capitalist society.

THE URGENCY FOR
REVOLUTIONARY HEALTHCARE REFORM

As out-of-pocket expenses continue to burden the people, the urgency for revolutionary healthcare reform becomes daily more apparent. The fight for truly free and universal healthcare, aged care and disability care is not just a demand for improved services but a revolutionary push for systemic change that prioritises the collective needs of the people over the interests of a privileged few.

In conclusion, the call for revolutionary healthcare reform in Australia resonates with the urgent need to address capitalist exploitation within the healthcare system. This requires transformative change, amounting to revolutionary political action designed to end a system that allows capitalist tycoons to steal public funds – and a class struggle strategy involving the expropriation and socialisation of Australia’s natural resources.

The battle for truly free and universal healthcare, aged care and disability care is not just an aspiration; it is a demand for a more equitable, inclusive, and compassionate healthcare system that serves the interests of the many, not the few.