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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Auspol May - Crisis on Infinite Australias

Freudian Slip: Mar 10, 2007; "I'm an archivist. I'm archiving."

Gorbash posted:

I don't have it, but in a similar vein back in the Abbott/Hockey years there was of course the Medicare co-payment, and I remember that the numbers around the average number of visits per year were based on some very dodgy assumptions. I think maybe Freudian Slip had done them? Does anyone remember that story, and maybe have a link to the post?

I didn't do the dodgy numbers. That was the head of the commission of audit, Tony Shepherd. He said that Australians visit the GP 11 times on average, when the real and easily found published number was 5.5 times per year.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-13/tony-shepherd-incorrect-doctor-visits/5436706

The thing is, they didn't stop repeating that line. I remember Hockey being on Q&A weeks later, still spouting the 11 times bullshit.

If people are curious about where we are at on the whole co-payment thing, I have written a paper on the effect of the current freeze on Medicare rebates. Long story short, they have stopped increasing how much GPs get from Medicare. Over time this is a paycut, especially as costs associated with providing care increase. This will force some GPs to introduce a co-payment to make up cost. Its a co-payment by stealth.

https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2015/202/6/cost-freezing-general-practice

Fun fact though: The two places you could find the real 5.5 visit rate published were the BEACH project (my project) and the NHPA. Both these research groups have had their federal funding pulled. It would be nice to think it was retribution, but the sad part is that its just part of the full defunding of general practice research by the Government. BEACH, FMRC, APHCRI, PHCRIS and 5 other general practice centres of research excellence are closing their doors due to funding cuts.

# ¿ May 2, 2016 12:59

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 12:25

Freudian Slip: Mar 10, 2007; "I'm an archivist. I'm archiving."

Just crunched the numbers on the Government's decision to freeze Medicare rebates for another 2 years. This means that bulk billing GPs will not have got a pay rise for eight years by 2020.

The additional cost of the 2 years will hit the average GP for about $14,000 a year and the average full time GP by about $20,000 a year. This is on top of the losses they will already incur from the freeze up until 2018.

This is a clear signal from Government to bulk-billing GPs that their business structure won't be viable in the future and that they should start charging a co-payment.

Labor and Greens really need to fight to get GPs paid, otherwise we can kiss universal health care goodbye.

# ¿ May 4, 2016 02:25

Freudian Slip: Mar 10, 2007; "I'm an archivist. I'm archiving."

Negligent posted:

My heart goes out to the poor doctors doing it tough on $200,000 a year. Might have to skimp and get an Audi instead of a Porsche SUV.

They have to pay all the costs associated with providing care. Rent, staff costs, equipment costs and huge insurance costs. Also they spent nearly a decade becoming fully qualified and they do it for about half of what other medical specialists get paid.

# ¿ May 4, 2016 02:33

Freudian Slip: Mar 10, 2007; "I'm an archivist. I'm archiving."

Because I don't agree with everything the AMA does?

The best way to curb health costs would be to move specialists away from fee-for-service to a salary. this would stop the temptation of specialists from doing unnecessary procedures. One unnecessary knee arthroscopy costs the equivalent of a bulk billing GP seeing over 100 patients.

If it was just GPs getting screwed, I wouldn't be upset. But this is an attack on the idea of universal health care, which has been shown to be the most efficient type of care. Its cheaper, more effective and patients have the highest level of satisfaction when you have a strong primary care system.

# ¿ May 4, 2016 02:44

Freudian Slip: Mar 10, 2007; "I'm an archivist. I'm archiving."

Endman posted:

Attacking GPs will increase the load on hospitals (due to patients not visiting GP due to lack of bulk bill and letting preventable conditions worsen) and probably end up being a lot more expensive in the long term.

Exactly, its completely arse backwards approach to health.

I just saw that they have kept the prescription medicine cost increase on the books even though Ley has said that it wouldn't happen.

# ¿ May 4, 2016 02:50

Freudian Slip: Mar 10, 2007; "I'm an archivist. I'm archiving."

QUACKTASTIC posted:

But think of the short-term savings!

In the short term people will avoid paying a co-payment by visiting the local ED, clogging up waiting times and costing the system 10 times that of GP visit.

# ¿ May 4, 2016 02:51

Freudian Slip: Mar 10, 2007; "I'm an archivist. I'm archiving."

NTEU (Best Union) has supported the Greens the last few elections

# ¿ May 5, 2016 00:51

Freudian Slip: Mar 10, 2007; "I'm an archivist. I'm archiving."

Negligent posted:

Median and average are both perfectly fine measures of central tendency to support a statement that 80k is middle income

Your an idiot if you think that mean and median will provide the same value in such a skewed sample as wage earnings

Old but relevant

http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2013/01/australian-income-inequality-worsens/

Median was 14% lower mean for fulltime workers

# ¿ May 5, 2016 02:42

Freudian Slip: Mar 10, 2007; "I'm an archivist. I'm archiving."

Amethyst posted:

I don't think calling people idiots over this poo poo is helpful. Politicians selectively manipulate statistics to serve their agenda. Keeping on top of it takes effort and starting a big fight every time someone repeats something they heard makes it harder

A person who can knows enough about statistics to confidently say

Negligent posted:

Median and average are both perfectly fine measures of central tendency to support a statement that 80k is middle income

is either an idiot or is trolling

# ¿ May 5, 2016 02:47

Freudian Slip: Mar 10, 2007; "I'm an archivist. I'm archiving."

Negligent posted:

I'm not trying to get the answer that most pleases statistical purists, to the normal voter, middle = average. So the treasurer's statement is fine. You can have a big argument about it but it's ultimately pointless nitpicking.

Most people do think that the middle is the average, so either 65K for fulltime workers or less for the average worker. Only 25% of people earn above 80K, that is not average in anyone's book.

# ¿ May 5, 2016 02:49

Freudian Slip: Mar 10, 2007; "I'm an archivist. I'm archiving."

I think all you need to say is "Only 25% of people earn above $80,000". Its simple and true.

# ¿ May 5, 2016 02:56

Freudian Slip: Mar 10, 2007; "I'm an archivist. I'm archiving."

What are the chances that NXT will pick up lower house seats in SA? Is there any good polling?

# ¿ May 5, 2016 07:24

Freudian Slip: Mar 10, 2007; "I'm an archivist. I'm archiving."

turdbucket posted:

I think it looks like they'll pick up at least another senate seat, maybe more plus a lower house seat? I don't have any links though sorry. I did just see on Facebook the site The Tallyroom just did something on his party, haven't read it yet but might be worth a Google.

Thanks. It links to this Guardian article

http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/may/05/nick-xenophon-brings-x-factor-to-election-results-in-south-australia

Looks like they have only a slim chance at the moment. If they can get up to 20% they may pick up lower house seats like Mayo.

# ¿ May 5, 2016 07:59

Freudian Slip: Mar 10, 2007; "I'm an archivist. I'm archiving."

open24hours posted:

Any losses will be offset by the extremely rapid growth in investment that will be prompted by the lower tax rates.

Not sure if you are being serious, but I think the modelling has taken into account the extra .1% growth in GDP per 1% of company tax cut.

# ¿ May 6, 2016 01:23

Freudian Slip: Mar 10, 2007; "I'm an archivist. I'm archiving."

Doctor Spaceman posted:

Eh, you can't even buy a dozen subs for that.

Just fibre to the premises

# ¿ May 6, 2016 01:24

Freudian Slip: Mar 10, 2007; "I'm an archivist. I'm archiving."

Doctor Spaceman posted:

https://twitter.com/GrogsGamut/status/730000459235090433

I wonder how Albo feels about being endorsed by the terrorgraph

# ¿ May 10, 2016 14:30

Freudian Slip: Mar 10, 2007; "I'm an archivist. I'm archiving."

Amoeba102 posted:

How do you market mesothelomia?

As a new weight loss method?

# ¿ May 11, 2016 09:03

Freudian Slip: Mar 10, 2007; "I'm an archivist. I'm archiving."

MysticalMachineGun posted:

Any accountants in the house? We've hit the end of our fixed rate for our home loan, and the fixed rates the bank is offering over x years is way better than the variable rate.

I always thought the variable was riskier but lower. Seems currently that going fixed is an absolute no-brainer, especially since rates can barely go any lower.

As always when you are choosing between fixed and variable, you are betting that you can predict the market better than the big banks. Rates can and probably will go down atleast another 25 points as the government leaves it to the RBA to kick start the economy.

Fixed rates can give you piece of mind, but the best advice that I can give is to make noises about wanting to switch to another lender (Ubank is always a good threat). They will usually knock down your interest rate by a good whack to keep your business

# ¿ May 16, 2016 04:46

Freudian Slip: Mar 10, 2007; "I'm an archivist. I'm archiving."

V for Vegas posted:

I don't know about Melbourne, but LNP preferences to the Greens will not change the result in Sydney and Grayndler.

You have anything to back up the Grayndler assertion? From what I have heard, the only way that Greens have a chance in Grayndler is if the Libs preference Greens over labor.

As in the Liberal HTV cards have a far bigger impact on Liberal voters than it does Green voters.

# ¿ May 20, 2016 02:56

Freudian Slip: Mar 10, 2007; "I'm an archivist. I'm archiving."

V for Vegas posted:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/federal-election-2016/guide/gray/

A Note on Margins

While Grayndler is regularly mentioned as a key target for the Greens, the party finished third in 2013 so the seat's margin is measured as a traditional two-party contested. In 2010 the Greens finished second, and with the Liberal Party having recommended preferences for the Greens, Labor won Grayndler with a margin of 4.2% versus the Greens. If the Liberal to Labor preference flow seen in Melbourne at the 2013 election is used, then the 2010 estimated Labor margin would have been 13.9% versus the Greens.

Re-estimating the 2013 Grayndler result post redistribution using Liberal preferences to the Greens from 2010, the Labor margin for Grayndler versus the Greens would be 5.8%, but the seat would be much safer if the Liberals recommend preferences for Labor. The Greens' best chance for winning Grayndler will probably come when Albanese eventually retires.

Cheers for this!

The 2013 election result which was a poor result for the greens - but I think the amount of publicity that Jim Casey is getting will actually make a difference. If the Libs do preference the Greens I would say that the final result will be much closer than 5.8%.

I would love to hear QMs views on this

# ¿ May 20, 2016 05:44

Freudian Slip: Mar 10, 2007; "I'm an archivist. I'm archiving."

Also forgot that there is real hot anger in the inner west about WestConnex. When Albo was minister for infrastructure he committed money to the project. Its hard for him to distance himself from it now.

# ¿ May 20, 2016 05:50

Freudian Slip: Mar 10, 2007; "I'm an archivist. I'm archiving."

As a health researcher this scares the poo poo out of me. For decades we have been warned about antibiotic resistant bacteria, but we kept overusing them particularly in factory farming to cut costs. Thanks antibiotics! It was nice having you for the past 70 years!

http://www.smh.com.au/world/the-superbug-that-could-render-antibiotics-useless-just-hit-the-us-20160526-gp4yl3.html

SMH posted:

For the first time, researchers have found a person in the United States carrying a bacteria resistant to antibiotics of last resort, an alarming development that the top US public health official says could mean "the end of the road" for antibiotics.

The antibiotic-resistant strain was found last month in the urine of a 49-year-old woman in the US state of Pennsylvania. Department of Defence researchers determined that carried a strain of E. coli resistant to the antibiotic colistin, according to a study published on Thursday. The authors wrote that the discovery "heralds the emergence of a truly pan-drug resistant bacteria."

Colistin is the antibiotic of last resort for particularly dangerous types of superbugs, including a family of bacteria known as CRE, which health officials have dubbed "nightmare bacteria." In some instances, these superbugs kill up to 50 per cent of patients who become infected. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has called CRE among the country's most urgent public health threats.

The results were published in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, a publication of the American Society for Microbiology.

It's the first time this colistin-resistant strain has been found in a person in the United States. Last November, public health officials around the globe reacted with alarm when Chinese and British researchers reported finding the colistin-resistant strain in pigs, raw pork meat and in a small number of people in China. The deadly strain was later discovered in Europe and elsewhere.

"It basically shows us that the end of the road isn't very far away for antibiotics -- that we may be in a situation where we have patients in our intensive-care units, or patients getting urinary tract infections for which we do not have antibiotics," CDC Director Tom Frieden in an interview Thursday.

"I've been there for TB patients. I've cared for patients for whom there are no drugs left. It is a feeling of such horror and helplessness," Frieden added. "This is not where we need to be."

CDC officials are working with Pennsylvania health authorities to interview the patient and family to identify how she may have contracted the bacteria, including reviewing recent hospitalisations and other healthcare exposures. CDC hopes to screen the patient and other contacts to see if others might be carrying the organism. Local and state health departments will also be collecting cultures as part of the investigation.

Scientists and public health officials have long warned that if the resistant bacteria continue to spread, it could seriously limit available treatment options. Routine operations could become deadly. Minor infections could become life-threatening crises. Pneumonia could be more and more difficult to treat.

Already, doctors had been forced to rely on colistin as a last-line defense against antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The drug is hardly ideal. It is more than half a century old and can cause serious damage to a patient's kidneys. And yet, because doctors have run out of weapons to fight a growing number of infections that evade more modern antibiotics, it has become a critical tool in fighting off some of the most tenacious infections.

Bacteria develop antibiotic resistance in two ways. Many acquire mutations in their own genomes that allow them to withstand antibiotics, although that ability can't be shared with pathogens outside their own family.

Other bacteria rely on a shortcut: they get infected with something called a plasmid, a small piece of DNA, carrying a gene for antibiotic resistance. That makes resistance genes more dangerous because plasmids can make copies of themselves and transfer the genes they carry to other bugs within the same family as well as jump to other families of bacteria, which can then "catch" the resistance directly without having to develop it through evolution.

The colistin-resistant E. coli found in the Pennsylvania woman has this type of resistance gene.

Washington Post

The other issue is that we are not spending anywhere near enough money on looking for new antibiotics or alternatives. That's because antibiotics are cheap - so there is little money to be made in discovering a new one, so most of the research is being done by the public sector.

# ¿ May 27, 2016 00:53

Freudian Slip: Mar 10, 2007; "I'm an archivist. I'm archiving."

From my limited knowledge of the area we now have drug resistant

TB
Gonorrhea (Sorry SOAG)
Urinary tract infections

We are going to get to the point where going to hospital will be risky again.

I have one quite intelligent friend who still won't listen when they insist they need antibiotic for a viral infection (eg. common cold).

# ¿ May 27, 2016 07:41

Freudian Slip: Mar 10, 2007; "I'm an archivist. I'm archiving."

So Brian Owler, the departing head of the AMA has been a fairly vocal critic of our treatment of asylum seekers.

The new head is a piece of poo poo

SMH posted:

The Australian Medical Association's new president has vowed to repair the group's relationship with government, which he says has been partly damaged by speaking out on asylum seekers.

Western Australian obstetrician and gynaecologist Dr Michael Gannon - who counts Coalition MPs among his friends - pledged to work "constructively" with whichever party formed government, shortly after he won the association's election at its national conference in Canberra on Sunday.

The doctors' union has lobbied against a range of Coalition policies under outgoing president Associate Professor Brian Owler, including its failed $7 GP co-payment and abandoned hospital funding formula. It recently launched a public campaign against the Turnbull government's extended freeze on Medicare rebates to 2020, warning patients this could lead to GPs charging a co-payment of up to $20.

Dr Gannon, formerly the president of the association's Western Australian branch, told Fairfax Media that its relationship with the government had been problematic, partly because the group had taken too many "risks" in criticising it on politically contentious issues such as asylum seekers.

Professor Owler has criticised the medical treatment offered to asylum seekers in detention, and intervened amid concerns a child known as Baby Asha could be forcibly removed from hospital and taken to detention. The child was ultimately released into community detention.

He has also called for an end to the detention of child asylum seekers, and accused the Department of Immigration of intimidating their doctors to prevent them speaking out publicly.

"I think there might have been a view formed in government that we weren't partners, that we weren't prepared to listen," Dr Gannon, who has named assistant health minister Ken Wyatt and Finance Minister Mathias Cormann among his friends, said. "That is not the case. We want to work constructively across the whole of the system and get back to talking about [health] issues."

Dr Gannon said: "It's not the AMA's job to talk more generally about asylum seeker policy. But it is their job to defend clear ethical principles regarding the health of asylum seekers [and] appropriate scrutiny of that care."

While he was prepared to speak out against policies "in an inconvenient way for government ... the AMA is strongest when talking about health issues using our expertise. Our moral arguments are stronger when we're talking about established principles of medical ethics and medical scientific evidence."

He hoped to offer "constructive solutions" whenever he criticised the government, saying that "everything should be on the table" when negotiating on the future of Medicare rebates.

The association's relationship with the government, regardless of the party in power, was more important than ever because the health system was at a "crossroads", he said, with a number of ongoing government reviews into the Medical Benefits Schedule, private insurance and primary care.

"If the government does not talk to the AMA, and vice versa, we are both poorer, and it is our patients who suffer most."
Victorian GP and former president of the Association's Victorian branch, Dr Tony Bartone, was voted vice-president. Dr Gannon and Dr Bartone will each serve two-year terms.

Meanwhile, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners' ad campaign against the extended Medicare rebate freeze will begin airing on Sunday night, in time for Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten's second leaders' debate at the National Press Club. The 45-second ads, which depict scenes of ill women who are unable to afford doctor appointments, will run throughout the election campaign.

Labor, which introduced its own eight-month pause on the indexation of rebates in 2013, has vowed to lift the extended freeze if elected.

# ¿ May 30, 2016 02:01

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 12:25

Freudian Slip: Mar 10, 2007; "I'm an archivist. I'm archiving."

Gorilla Salad posted:

I'm pretty sure Dr. Gannon's first meeting with Susan Ley went a little like this:

It's from way back - but I wanted to say that's a nice piece of writing.

# ¿ May 31, 2016 00:37

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