Healthcare to undergo serious surgery in tough Australian budget

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Healthcare to undergo serious surgery in tough Australian budget

By Matt Siegel CANBERRA (Reuters) - Healthcare in Australia is set for its biggest shake-up since the introduction of universal coverage in the 1970s, as part of a tough federal budget on Tuesday that critics fret is taking the country towards a U.S.-style system. In support of that position, the audit recommended an A$15 ($14) fee for doctors' visits and proposed a U.S.-style healthcare model in which all Australians would be required to buy private health insurance, with lower wage earners receiving a subsidy. That puts Australia in the odd position of moving away from universal coverage even as U.S. President Barack Obama has spent years of political capital trying to introduce it in his country, the last holdout against universal coverage in the developed world. \"Australia is the only country heading in the opposite direction,\" Lesley Russell, an Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Sydney's Menzies Centre for Health Policy, who advised Obama's administration on its healthcare reforms, told Reuters.

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