Major parties neglect election healthcare ‘hole’

A report by The Australian Financial Review (AFR) said health experts were claiming that neither Labor nor Liberal had a plan to fund increasing hospital costs over the next decade.Labor’s announcent over the 12-13 June weekend indicated that its hospital plan would only cover the next four years, with subsequent years seingly undecided.Liberals’ policy is to change the funding formula for hospitals from indexation to activity-based funding for the next four years, but it will not commit beyond that.The report said health experts believed Labor’s original promise to take up to 50 per cent of the growing hospital bill and the Liberals’ complete rejection of the commitment were both unrealistic positions, and that a compromise would eventually have to be found with the state governments.Health economist Mr Stephen Duckett told the AFR that there was now huge uncertainty about hospital funding . He added that all the states were building new hospitals but that there was no firm commitment from the Federal Government or the Opposition on whether they would help fund th.