Modern ministers for health in the Liberal Party are no friends of families or of Medicare.

Couldn't be at yesterday's

Save Medicare Rally in Melbourne ?

Get a cuppa, sit back, put your feet up ...

and Miss Eagle will make you feel as if you were there.

The ABC News has a done a quite reasonable story

on the rally and the issue.

Then there is this YouTube item

There's a Flickr photostream here

Miss Eagle's rally photos are here

Ian Hall's photo of the march are here.

The march went from the State Library

to the premises of the Business Council of Australia.

The Abbott Government's Commission of Audit

and other elements of the Medicare proposal

have involvement from members of the BCA. 

The research - which is recommending co-payments

for GP visits now fully funded by Medicare - 

has been done by Terry Barnes, an adviser to Tony Abbott,

when he was Health Minister in the Howard Government.

The research was commissioned and funded by the 

Australian Centre for Health Research.

When you visit the last link,

click on the 'About Us' tab on the silver ribbon at the top.

Then go to the side-bar and click on 'Board of Directors'.

Please note who these directors are.

Not one of them could remotely be considered as

a consumer advocate or representative.

ACHR has tried to make itself look as if it is

broad-based or non-political

with the inclusion of 'Labor man' Neil Batt. 

A look at Batt's background should make clear

that he is hardly and working-class man.

An this is certainly the case for the others.

You also might note that the name

Australian Unity has more than a mention.

Australian Unity is a major health insurance fund.

Their self-interest is self-evident.

Should, dear reader, you have health insurance

with Australian Unity you must think upon the 

fact that in giving AU your business, you

are contributing to the downfall of Medicare.

So let's look at the pedigree of this proposal.

There is a Commission of Audit established by Tony Abbott.

It is comprised of members of the Business Council of Australia

(who, it can be assumed, either have the top rank of health insurance

or can afford to pay for their own health services)

and, almost certainly, each are paid up members of the Liberal Party of Australia.

If for some sort of reason, such as a career which requires them to parade

as impartial, I feel confident in guessing that

 they frequent Liberal Party events and people.

The research has been done by a former Liberal Party policy adviser,

Terry Barnes.

Abbott was not the first Liberal Health Minister that Terry Barnes served.

He also worked for Michael Wooldridge.

I don't want to query Barnes's ethics but many have questioned those

of Michael Wooldridge.

Added to the Wikipedia entry, you can read about the MRI scandal

here, here, and here.

All this sort of muck did eventually mean that Wooldridge 

wore out his welcome.

One is left to wonder where Barnes was in all this?

Did he prove to be a gun for hire way back then,

as he clearly is now?

So the background for the Medicare co-payment is indeed circular.

It is an expose, as well, of how some people build their careers

and establish their finances.

It is well to always take heed of Adam Smith.

As he said in his seminal work -

An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations - 

People of the same trade seldom meet together, 

even for merriment and diversion, 

but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, 

or in some contrivance to raise prices.

I would also add 

"or in some way to influence and collude with government".

From Wooldridge to Abbott to Dutton
there is no reason to feel comforted
that Liberal Party Ministers of Health
will act in the best interests of Australian families.