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The Budget does not signal an end to the 'age of entitlement', as there are still plenty of beneficiaries of government expenditure or foregone revenue. You don't need to be an economist to see that collectively the Budget measures will impact negatively on the income levels of the poor and disadvantaged. The discussion now must be who will pick up the pieces left behind by Government in developing a system with obvious gaps.
Health minister Peter Dutton has refused to dismiss the possibility that a $6 ‘co-payment’ for GP visits could be announced in the May Federal Budget. This would be no more than a quick and easy temporary fix that would penalise ordinary Australians. It would simply defer the government's need to tackle the vested interests that are arguably the major cause of the inefficiencies that have made our health care system prohibitively expensive.
Being born in Australia is a huge advantage. And having parents with money, a good education and connections always helps. Some of us have an advantage before we've even started school. But like the players in American psychologist Paul Piff's 'rigged Monopoly' experiments, those of us who do well tend to think we've earned our good fortune through hard work, talent and creativity.
The Federal Government announced the inclusion of nicotine patches in the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS). Critics argue that smokers should take responsibility for their habit and pay the full cost of giving up. They miss the point of society.
Saeed Saeed has written for many of Australia's leading news publications such as the Courier Mail, the MX and the Australian. He is also a music & film critic for Mediasearch and Melbourne radio station PBSFM. Saeed also works casually as youth worker in Melbourne's northern suburbs.
One reader finds the "decision of Federal Health Minister Tony Abbott to keep the anti-cervical cancer drug, Gardasil, off the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) greater cause for alarm, than that unfortunate reference to 'uncovered meat' and 'cats'."
Europe and Africa lie just 14km apart across the Straits of Gibraltar which separate Spain from Morocco, but when it comes to living standards, there is no wider gulf between neighbours anywhere in the world.
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