| Abstract: | Health policy was an integral component of the post‐war welfare state, which represented a nationally based class compromise providing concessions in the form of income support and service provision outside the ambit of the market. In Australia, development of a universal health system was delayed until the introduction of Medibank, and subsequently Medicare. Since its inception, Medicare has been subjected to retrenchment pressures that have dominated welfare state developments since the mid 1970s. This paper traces developments in the Australian health system, revealing that the major trends, privatisation and the transfer of responsibility from the collective to the private sphere, represent a movement towards a more residual system that threatens the Medicare goal of equitable access to quality medical treatment. |
