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On Fri, 28 Oct 1994, Anne L. Potter wrote: > Don't you people have nationalized health care, or has the myth about the > wonders of "private enterprise" triumphed there, too. Yes, we do. What I was referring to was a change in the Worker's Compensation Act which allowed people to bypass the legal system in obtaining medical assistance for work induced injuries. The result, in Victoria, was a situation was has some similarities with what I understand is the case with your "managed health care" systems in the States. Every employer was obliged to pay the government a workers compensation levy to cover their employers. If an employee was injured then their levy was increased in the following year. [This was supposed to make them take industrial safety measures seriously.] There were also disincentives against sacking employees who had been injured. An injured worker was entitled to rehabilitation free of charge and the employer was obliged to arrange and cooperate with this. The government set up a Work Health Authority which accredited work health providers. Private providers, such as myself were accredited, but large insurance companies also got in on the band-wagon, seeing it as a money-making scam. The idea was good in principle, but in practice the costs blew out (the insurance companies had some vested interest in that). As with most government administered social services during times of economic crises the cost savings to the tax payers became of increasingly more importance than the issues of social justice as the recession deepened. I think it's probably still better than the legal system which preceded it and which only the already rich could afford to utilise. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rosemary Lyndall Rosemary from DownUnder _--_|\ Clinical Neuro-psychologist [log in to unmask] Perth / \ Perth, Western Australia [log in to unmask] -->\_.--._/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------v--