G'day Odin,

Australia is not Heaven but I've lived in the Middle East, Asia, the Pacific and I would not want to live anywhere else. Australians do really believe in a "far go". That is the unfortunate should be helped and so you do not end up with people working two jobs and still not having enough to eat. You have some welfare frauds because our welfare system is quite generous but not enough to say the system is broken in any way.

Actually it might be generous but if you are like me and have a high needs medical condition, the amounts paid does not stretch very far. We have a truly universal healthcare system. It certainly could be better. It is run by beaurocrats so what more needs to be said. But people are seen and operations if essential are performed no matter how poor you are. My condition would cost around $3,000 a week in the US plus the cost of periodic operations. Here it is free, although a lot of my prescriptions cost me some money and even af $5 a script it does add up.

I was a moderator on the world's biggest pain site for some years and that involved mostly those in the US. The problems these poor people faced was just horrendous and this was on top of the fact that they were suffering such severe medical conditions. What I found was so very strange was that if they found a caring doctor there was a good chance the DEA would swoop in eventually and prosecute the doctor for overprescribing pain relief medication. In Australia they get around the idea but simply having you see a specialist who approves the medication and every three months or so another doctor aside from your family doctor has to see you and verify the need for the medication. You go to the same doctor and he or she calls up the Medical Authorities and gets permission to issue an "Authority Script". That way they have an exact record of the medication you receive and the doctor is protected.

I recall a person in the US who had her drugs stolen on the way home from the pharmacy and she was denied any further medication for the whole month because the doctor refused to refill the script. In nine years of needing these medications I've had my medications stolen once and most of it lost because of faulty caps and my wife laying the bottles over on their sides to save space. On both occasions a script was reissued without problem although I did have to prove the theft had been investigated by the Police and my wife did have to produce a little note saying what had happened the other time. That is a pretty fair system.

There is no such thing as a perfect government or a perfect balance of support for the unfortunate without some unwanted effect. And considering I'm pretty close to the bottom of the heap in socio economic circumstances, you'd think I'd complain that the pension should be higher or that public housing should be available to people such as me. I do think that public housing has been neglected but I still think that overall I'm better off here than pretty much anywhere else I can think of.

Both my children still in school go to private schools. That is because the schools have a hardship policy that if you are attending and the parents, through no fault of their own, can no longer afford to keep you in the school, then they will take on the burden. My youngest daughter is at the top of her whole year in all subjects but physical education. My eldest daughter had no trouble going to university with a father unable to support her and has just completed five years of a Social Services Degree. Yes, the government lends her money to do the degree and she has to pay it back but it isn't a huge burden.

So if you want a model of a world that works, Australia is not a bad example of most of it working most of the time.


Regards


Richard


Sane=fits in. Unreasonable=world needs to fit to him. All Progress requires unreasonableness