The Price of Health: Australian Governments and Medical Politics 1910-1960

by James A. Gillespie

Overview

This book provides background to the current debate on health policy by studying the political conflict over it in Australia from 1910 to 1960. It looks at both state and national levels to identify the main structures and forces that shaped the system of publicly-subsidized private practice, which is now most obvious in the fee-for-service scheme.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521523226
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	06/06/2002
Series:	Studies in Australian History
Edition description:	FIRST/REPRINT
Pages:	380
Product dimensions:	5.51(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.83(d)

Table of Contents

List of tables; Preface; Acknowledgements; Abbreviations; Part I. Medicine and the State: 1900 to 1939: 1. 'A game of animal grab', medical practice, 1920–39; 2. National hygiene and nationalization: the failure of a federal health policy, 1918–39; 3. Doctors, the states and interwar medical politics; 4. The defeat of national health insurance; Part II. The Reconstruction of Medicine? Planning and Politics, 1940 to 1949: 5. The BMA wins the War; 6. From 'Sales and service' to 'cash and carry': the planning of postwar reconstruction; 7. Paying the doctor: the BMA caught between salaried medicine and fee-for-service; 8. Relieving the patient, not the doctor: the Hospital Benefits Act; 9. A war of attrition: the fate of the pharmaceutical benefits scheme; 10. The limits of reform: the Chifley government and a national health service, 1945–9; Part III. The Public and the Private: 11. Private practice, publicly funded: the Page health service; 12. Conclusion; Notes; Bibliography; Index.

Editorial Reviews

"...quite persuasive in proposing a complex and nuanced reading of Australian medical politics." Christopher H. Foreman, Jr., American Political Science Review

"...it will be an important source for future students of the period." Anne Crichton, Pacific Affairs

From the Publisher