Andrew Miller: Why health is a direct indicator of whether a government has its act together
Few Rolex-wearing analysts predicted the chaos emanating from US markets in the first half of 2025. Why is that?
Seeing as economic pundits seem flat-footed, I offer the Miller barometer — which asks, is a nation's healthcare improving, or in decline?
This is a direct indicator of whether a government has its act together, and priorities right.
Australia?
Currently struggling to provide timely access; excessively managerial. The crucial balance between private and public is under threat from excessive insurer profit-taking.
Aussies like governments who prioritise their health, as Premier Mark McGowan objectively demonstrated with his 91 per cent approval rating.
Outside of pandemic management, paying at least lip service to universal healthcare is a necessary prerequisite for getting elected.
Labor's $8.5 billion boost to bulk-billing was immediately adopted as bipartisan policy, despite — or because of — some tricky fine print that will see chunks of that remain unspent.
China?
Patchy services, especially in the poorer regions, but rapidly improving universality. Lack of transparency in data, but every country massages the numbers.
USA?
Shifting from terrifying to horrifying. Serious issues around insurance claim denials even for those covered; now in a death spiral as unqualified anti-science dolts have usurped the health administration.
The lipstick that Robert F Kennedy Jr put on his conspiracy theories during confirmation is gone and the gates of infectious-disease hell are creaking open. Powerful Trump patsies are degrading everything from Ebola prevention to the independence of critical medical journals and research.
The UK?
Mired in befuddled post-Brexit grime, the Brits are struggling to patch their listing, leaking National Health Service. Australian hospital doctors know that every thought bubble of NHS management is soon thereafter presented Down Under as 'the next big idea.'
What's coming? Currently they are dealing with an unholy mess surrounding 'physician associates' — a new breed of briefly trained, poorly regulated non-doctors who can 'diagnose and prescribe' for you — proving that there is no fateful cost-saving measure their Vogonesque bureaucrats will not trial.
Why not just train more actual doctors to meet your workforce needs, rather than indulge in false economy until the inevitable inquiry into tragic outcomes?
Spoiler — the Leng Review is already commissioned.
For sad example, 30-year-old Emily Chesterton died from a misdiagnosed treatable condition.
She reportedly never knew she saw a physician associate, rather than an actual GP, during two critical consultations. Experienced doctors are not always right, but they are right more often than anyone else in diagnostics, and artificial intelligence will not change that soon.
Will international vibes sway our election this week?
Well, could-a-been Prime Minister Peter Dutton's voice sounds like it is an octave higher than one might expect from a six-foot, well-heeled former copper because, like many allies, he has been given a nasty wedgie by President Donald Trump
He should not feel alone in that though.
He probably won't see inside the Lodge any time soon, but all of us who believe in western democratic ideals are getting a frighteningly solid wedgie right now.
Incumbent PM Anthony Albanese is more Clydesdale than racehorse, but he benefits from being one step more removed than the Coalition is from Trump, the weird Palmer Trumpet, and fangirl Trumpettes.
Dutton also served up a few policies that have the strong whiff of Mar-a-Lago prawns past their use-by date.
Abolishing work from home, pruning the public service, deporting citizens, and installing nuclear power plants on our predictably sunny, windy and wavy continent all probably sounded good at the Coalition strategy day.
Their wooden delivery though reminds me of that Simpsons infomercial for Homer's workplace — Springfield's iconic power plant.
It introduces nuclear energy as 'our misunderstood friend,' while atomic cartoon character Smilin' Joe Fission frantically sweeps radioactive waste under a carpet.
Homer later rallies the populace in rebellion, chanting his frightening slogan — 'Our lives are in the hands of men no smarter than you or I.'
Indeed.
Enjoy your sausage, and celebrate the relative health of our democracy.
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