NHHRC: Medicare Select – What is it?

Our Parliamentary library has a good analysis of Medicare Select for those of you wondering what Option C means in the NHHRC report.

I would like to see this option compared with a ‘healthcare credit card’ system. From the analysis and debates I’ve heard on Medicare select it seems a real sticking point is the lack of flexibility it actually brings. While it would add increased competition to the market, people are ultimately still quite limited in their options of care. In some respects they are more limited. For example, now people can go to virtually any public hospital for treatment. Under Medicare select my superficial understanding is that they would be limited to a chain of hospitals, much like the HMO system in the USA. For this reason many doctors don’t like the concept either.

A credit card system would give every individual a base level of money to spend on health and allow them to spend it wherever they chose. I believe that one reason health literacy is relatively low in Australia is that we don’t need to take responsibility for our health and how we spend on health. Giving people purchasing power would allow them to learn what relative costs are in healthcare.

Clearly though, this system needs a full analysis of its own.

The ‘Wellness’ Phone

NTT DoCoMo Inc. has prototyped and presented a “wellness mobile phone” that can measure body fat ratio, pulse, breath odor, how far the user has walked and give health advice.

This was a joint development with Mitsubishi Electric Corp. and the company assumes that it will be commercialized in the future, although it has not determined a marketing schedule yet. The company’s booth was filled with many visitors who came to try the prototype.

Based on a mobile phone embedded with a touch panel type LCD, it has sensors to measure various types of biometric information. For example, an infrared sensor measures the pulse using via absorption of hemoglobin. For the measurement of breath odor, a gas sensor set at the bottom of the handset has been used (seems very Japanese to me, but sometimes we all need a reminder!).

A pedometer can sense whether a user is walking, running or climbing up or down stairs. Reflecting such situations, the mobile phone calculates the user’s energy consumption accurately, the company said. Along with an application that monitors and shows the user’s health data in chronological order, the company believes the mobile phone will be used in combination with dietary control services and applications related to fitness management, mental healthcare and the like.