1301.0 - Year Book Australia, 2007
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 24/01/2007
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The Australian health system has a diversity of arrangements for planning, funding, delivering and regulating health services, featuring a mix of private and public sector involvement. The Australian Government, through the Health and Ageing portfolio, has significant financial and policy responsibility for health services, including hospitals, public health and mental health, while the state and territory governments are largely responsible for the direct provision of such services. Local governments and non-government organisations are also involved in the direct provision of health services. Private, non-salaried practitioners provide most medical, dental and allied health care. Two major national subsidy schemes - Medicare and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme - are funded by the Australian Government to cover all Australian citizens and permanent residents, and are discussed in Health care delivery and financing. In 2004-05 total expenditure on health as a proportion of Australia's gross domestic product was 9.8%. The chapter contains four articles. The first Mortality trends of people aged 50 years and over examines changes in mortality trends between 1970-72 and 2002-04. The article Chronic conditions and disability discusses chronic conditions and disabilities experienced by people in 2003. The third article Health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians presents findings from a survey of the Indigenous population in 2004-05, and compares these with those for the non-Indigenous population. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) collected some information on people's level of satisfaction with their lives, as part of the 2001 National Health Survey. The chapter concludes with the article Life satisfaction and measures of progress which discusses how life satisfaction can be measured, its relevance to an understanding of national wellbeing, and presents some related statistics.
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