How Australia’s ‘unfair’ dental system – and the way $1.3bn is spent – is driving inequality and leaving millions of people behind
How Australia’s ‘unfair’ dental system – and the way $1.3bn is spent – is driving inequality and leaving millions of people behind
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Half of all government spending on dental care goes to private insurance rebates – meaning those without often skip treatment until things get worse. Patients bear the brunt of dentist fees. But of the $1.3bn the federal government spends on the nation’s teeth, more than half goes to subsidising the uptake of private health insurance.
The inequality of Australia’s dental care system can be seen in the numbers, says Peter Breadon, the health program director at the Grattan Institute. As people who cannot afford dental bills delay or skip treatment, untreated dental decay is on the rise and record numbers are turning up to hospitals for dental procedures, Breadon said.
“It is a big problem, and it’s a growing problem as the impact of missing out on care builds up and as our population gets older.”. Of all areas of health, the share of the cost borne by the patient for dental care is far higher than the other services, and according to Breadon it’s being driven by dental care sitting outside the Medicare system.
Breadon said, according to Grattan research, the share the patient pays for dental care is nine times higher than GP visits, five times higher than for medicines on the pharmaceutical benefits scheme “and that is why over 2 million people say they delay or skip dental care”.
According to latest Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) data, Australia spends more than $12bn on dental services. More than 61% of that cost falls to the individual, health insurance funds cover 19%, and the federal government 11% and state governments 8%.
