Yesterday
- Exclusive
- Health insurance
Pressure for health premium overhaul in election headache for Albanese
The influential medical lobby is demanding an independent umpire to determine how high insurance premiums can rise as negotiations over the next increase begin.
- Michael Smith
July
Inside the stoush between private hospitals and health insurers
As finances deteriorate, insurers and providers are slugging it out over how to overhaul a healthcare system which has not seen serious reform in decades.
- Michael Smith
Nicotine use soaring as vapes go underground
Experts warn the federal government’s new vaping policies will tip money into the pockets of criminal enterprises and potentially even increase smoking rates.
- Gus McCubbing
- Exclusive
- Biosecurity
Avian flu surveillance to be upped amid fears of spring outbreaks
A $7 million package of federal initiatives is to be rolled out to prepare for possible outbreaks of the highly dangerous H5N1 avian flu strain
- Tom Burton
Private hospital operators to hand over profitability data
Data about break-even points and investability will be handed to the Health Department by next week, The Australian Financial Review has learnt.
- Tom McIlroy
June
Vapes would be sold like cigarettes under Coalition policy
Vapes would be subject to an excise tax that could raise billions of dollars annually, under a proposal unveiled by shadow health spokeswoman Anne Ruston.
- Ronald Mizen
‘Not tobacconists’: Pharmacists reject Labor-Greens deal on vapes
Health Minister Mark Butler on Monday backflipped on plans to mandate doctors’ prescriptions for all vape sales but said the government would still limit their sale to pharmacies.
- Updated
- Ronald Mizen
Help us or hospital system could fail: private operator
One of Australia’s largest Catholic hospital operators says a review of the viability of the private sector must secure a viable business model.
- Tom McIlroy
Labor, Coalition making progress towards higher aged care fees
The Albanese government hopes for a deal as early as next week on higher aged care fees for those who can pay.
- Phillip Coorey
- Exclusive
- Healthcare
Private hospitals open books for urgent ‘health check’
Health Minister Mark Butler has launched an urgent review into the $22 billion private hospital system.
- Tom McIlroy
May
Replica Ozempic ban could deny thousands ‘life-changing medication’
Healthcare start-ups say the ban is a step too far and risks leaving tens of thousands of Australians without the medications they need.
- Euan Black and Paul Smith
Pharmacy Guild still the natural enemy of competition
The guild’s preferred business model is for its members to be on high margins and their customers paying little, with the taxpayer eternally bridging the difference.
- Myriam Robin
Replica Ozempic and Mounjaro will be banned by October
The ruling preserves the status quo of the drug market in a boon to big pharmaceutical firms and a blow to start-ups that are trying to disrupt the sector.
- Nick Bonyhady
Prescription drug price freeze until 2026
Moves to limit price increases for prescription holders will come into force from January 1 next year.
- Tom McIlroy
Budget surplus of $9.3b and then a sea of red ink
Tuesday’s federal budget will forecast a surplus of $9.3 billion for this financial year, after which the bottom line will plunge into successive deficits.
- Phillip Coorey
March
- Analysis
- Inside Government
Health chief invokes ‘AFR test’ in proposal writing overhaul
Blair Comley has applied what he calls “the AFR test” as he pushes executives in his federal health department to write and think more clearly.
- Tom Burton
- Updated
- Health insurance
Private hospitals sound alarm as premiums rise
More than a dozen private hospitals have closed since last year, with NIB boss Mark Fitzgibbon warning of a structural change in the provision of medical care.
- Michael Read and James Thomson
January
Crackdown seizes $4.5m of disposable vapes
Border Force authorities seized 150,000 disposable vapes worth about $4.5 million after the federal government cracked down on the ‘public health menace’.
- Gus McCubbing
- Exclusive
- Mental health
Mental health decline among young reaches crisis point
Leading mental health advocate Patrick McGorry has told the Albanese government a rise in diagnoses represents a public health crisis in Australia.
- Tom McIlroy
Controlling COVID ‘at all costs’ went too far: ex-deputy health chief
Officials persisted with policies despite the changing nature of the pandemic, while state powers on lockdowns need to be reined in, Dr Nick Coatsworth said.
- John Kehoe
