Open AccessA COMPARATIVE EXAMINATION OF THE AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND HEALTH SYSTEMS
Author(s) -
Tatchell Michael
Publication year - 1982
Publication title -
community health studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.946
H-Index - 76
eISSN - 1753-6405
pISSN - 0314-9021
DOI - 10.1111/j.1753-6405.1982.tb00379.x
Subject(s) - per capita , gross domestic product , recession , health care , demographic economics , population , government (linguistics) , measures of national income and output , australian population , health services , business , socioeconomics , geography , economics , economic growth , medicine , environmental health , market economy , linguistics , philosophy , keynesian economics
In both New Zealand and Australia the 1970s was a period of rapid escalation in health costs, and modest increases in utilisation, set against a background, particularly in the later years, of economic downturn and restrictions in government spending. As a consequence total expenditure on health care, as a proportion of gross domestic product, continued to rise throughout the decade, reaching 6.7 percent in New Zealand and 7.9 per cent in Australia by 1979. Much of this difference can be explained, statistically, by the higher level of national income per capita in Australia ‐ the contrasting systems of financing and provision appear to be less significant. Other related explanatory factors include differences in the proportion of the labour force employed in the health sector; in the number of general practitioners per head of population; and in the rates of utilisation of both personal and hospital services.