The public health care system in Australia is called Medicare.
Pretty much every person with a permanent residency is entitled to (parts of) this service and it ensures that all Australians have access to free or low-cost medical, optometrical and hospital care while being free to choose private health services and in special circumstances allied health services.
People who reside in Australia – excluding Norfolk Island – are eligible if they:
- hold Australian citizenship
- have been issued with a permanent visa
- hold New Zealand citizenship
- have applied for a permanent visa (excludes an application for a parent visa)—other requirements apply. Contact Medicare for further information.
The enrolment form can be found here.
You can find information on what Medicare covers and doesn’t cover here. For people traveling (Or just arriving, which is actually the same) additional coverage may apply. This is called: Reciprocal Health Care Agreements (RHCA). This is because Australia has signed an agreement with a couple of countries. More info on that here.
Medicare is a public healthcare program that facilitates access by all Australian residents to free hospital care. Introduced in 1984, it is one of most respected public healthcare programs in the world and many countries have studied and partially or wholly adopted the model. The Medicare also collaborates with international organizations such as the World Bank and the World Health Organization.
Not all medical services are covered by Medicare. For instance, medical examinations prior to signing a job contract cannot be catered for by Medicare. Community-level government funded health care services are also not eligible for Medicare reimbursement – they are already considered government projects.
Even though the term Medicare dates back to 1984, the program itself has its true origins 10 years earlier. The Health Insurance Commission was established by Parliament in 1974 and had the mandate of administering a universal health insurance scheme known as Medicare. Medicare was birthed after a long period of dissatisfaction with the general state and cost of health care in the country.
Medicare was conceived as a means of ensuring universal health care through a heavily subsidized scheme that would see Australians pay a fraction of the cost they would ordinarily incur. At its inception, the proposed source of funding for this public insurance scheme was a 1.35% try citizen. This was at first rejected and funds were obtained direct from general government revenue.
But a huge bill of $1.647 billion in the first year saw this move reconsidered. Financing for Medicare would later be restored to a 1.5% percentage levy of each citizen’s income. However, lower income earners (AU$11,803 per annum for married couples and single parent homes, and AU$ 7,110 per year for single persons) are exempt from this levy.
Even then, Medicare’s success was momentous and soon became an integral part of the healthcare system. It was renamed to Medicare in 1984 when it became a statutory agency as part of the Australian Public Service. Medicare also caters for visitors from certain countries that the scheme has reciprocal agreements with.
These countries include the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, Italy, Finland, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand and Sweden. The reciprocal agreement means that Australians visiting these countries can still enjoy to some extent the benefits of the public health care system in those countries without the need to pay.
The Medicare program has helped improve the quality of life in Australia by ensuring that every citizen has access to quality healthcare regardless of their income. Persons that have applied for immigration and have a temporary visa may qualify for Medicare if they have already been granted the right to work in the country. Children below 15 years of age are treated under the same account as their parents but can get their own Medicare card once they attain the age of 15.
References:
http://www.medicareaustralia.gov.au/about/index.jsp
http://www.aph.gov.au/library/intguide/SP/medicare.htm
