Health care and the youth in Australia

April 18, 2008

Health care and the youth in Australia

Australia's Medicare system provides free or low-cost universal care to all individuals.

Australians under the age of 15 can obtain their own Medicare card linked to their parent's account. Because the accounts are linked parents have access to all of their child's medical information.

The Australian newspaper The Age has an article discussing a new proposal that will help young Australians keep their medical details private.

From The Age:

[I]magine for a moment that you are a 14-year-old confused about your sexuality. You're too embarrassed to discuss this with your parents, or perhaps you have unsympathetic parents or come from a dysfunctional family. Wouldn't it be in everyone's best interests if you could talk in confidence to a trusted GP about this?

The proposed solution is the automatic distribution of Medicare cards to all Australian youths when they reach age 13.

This change to the Australian system has two components. First, Medicare cards will be distributed automatically. No longer will teenagers need to enroll in the system. Second, the age for an individual (not linked) Medicare account is lowered from 15 to 13.

Here in the U.S. the debate is focused on whether or not universal health care should exist. In Australia the issue is how young a person should be when they get their own private universal health care account.

For more information on the Australian Medicare system you can visit these links:

Medicare Australia at Wikipedia

Medicare system blamed for GP wage disparity

The Health Care system in Australia