Table of Contents

List of tables; Preface; Acknowledgements; Abbreviations; Part I. Medicine and the State: 1900 to 1939: 1. 'A game of animal grab', medical practice, 1920–39; 2. National hygiene and nationalization: the failure of a federal health policy, 1918–39; 3. Doctors, the states and interwar medical politics; 4. The defeat of national health insurance; Part II. The Reconstruction of Medicine? Planning and Politics, 1940 to 1949: 5. The BMA wins the War; 6. From 'Sales and service' to 'cash and carry': the planning of postwar reconstruction; 7. Paying the doctor: the BMA caught between salaried medicine and fee-for-service; 8. Relieving the patient, not the doctor: the Hospital Benefits Act; 9. A war of attrition: the fate of the pharmaceutical benefits scheme; 10. The limits of reform: the Chifley government and a national health service, 1945–9; Part III. The Public and the Private: 11. Private practice, publicly funded: the Page health service; 12. Conclusion; Notes; Bibliography; Index.

Promotional Information

This 1991 book is a history of political conflict over health policy in Australia, providing background to an ongoing debate.

Reviews

"...quite persuasive in proposing a complex and nuanced reading of Australian medical politics." Christopher H. Foreman, Jr., American Political Science Review "...it will be an important source for future students of the period." Anne Crichton, Pacific Affairs