Describe the basic features of the Australian system and compare and contrast it with one or more systems in other countries.

First Assignment: Health System Financing
Address one or other topic.
(1) Choose some facet of the Australian health care financing system that you are interested in (how we fund health services how we reimburse hospitals or how we pay doctors for example). Describe the basic features of the Australian system and compare and contrast it with one or more systems in other countries. Particular things to consider in your answer are: what are the stated objectives of the system if any; what criteria might you use to assess performance; what incentive effects are generated by the different funding or financing mechanisms; are these consistent with the objectives/ criteria; and how does each system perform relative to the objectives/criteria?
(2) Is there anything that Medicare or the National Disability Insurance Scheme could learn from the operation of Medical Savings Accounts in jurisdictions such as Singapore?
Note that this question is really just the same as the one above except the focus has been shifted to include the NDIS and consider only Medical Savings Accounts (sometimes called Health Savings Accounts). While the parallel is far from exact MSAs have some elements in common with the NDIS notably the focus on empowering the user in the choice of care / support packages. If you tackle this option you should also consider the objectives of the system the criteria by which you might want to assess performance the nature (strength and direction) of any incentive effects caused by the funding mechanism and how you would assess success in practice. As we will not cover MSAs in class I have posted some references below.
Words:1500
Deadline for submission is 11.55 pm April 27