(The lack of) sports injury policies from the major Australian political parties
In 2006, government health insurer Medibank Private released a report summarising that sports injuries cost Australians $2 billion dollars per year, reminding young people that they should stay active but consider private health insurance to help treat any injuries that may result. Click
here to download the report. The full cost to have a knee reconstruction
after a netball or football injury could be over $10000 for an insured person in
the private system. In 2004, cricketinjuries.com's John Orchard claimed in Sport Medicine Australia 's magazine, Sport Health, that none of the Federal political parties have any interest in sports injury policy. Read the full Sport Health article (.pdf format)
. Read a similar editorial from the 2002 Medical Journal of Australia . Click to read the MJA press release . New Zealand has much better documentation of injury rates than Australia - to view their national figures see the Accident Compensation Corporation's latest updates .
Click to
read the latest development in sports medicine specialisation. Plus read the
AMC's report on sports medicine as a specialty in Australia (large .pdf)
The table below shows what a policy 'black hole' area sports injury is in Australia today:
Policy relevant to the management of sports injuries |
Coalition |
Labor |
Establishing a body to count the annual costs of sports injuries in Australia (1). |
No policy |
No policy, although Labor has decided to
add a health promotion portfolio to the Sports Ministry |
Create a national catastrophic sporting injuries insurance scheme, similar to the revenue-neutral New South Wales Sporting Injuries Insurance Scheme . |
No policy |
No policy |
Assess the specialty status of Australian College of Sports Physicians (2). |
The Minister has accepted that sports
medicine is a specialty but has deferred judgment on whether the ACSP is
of specialty training standard. |
No policy |
Continue to fund sports medicine consultations at a lower rate than all other recognised branches of medicine |
Current policy |
No policy |
Stop automatically funding certain surgical operations for sports injuries that have been proven not to work, and start funding other management that has been proven to work, such as physiotherapy (3). |
Is funding physiotherapy for certain conditions but not sports injuries. |
No policy |
Make University sports facility fees non compulsory |
The government has implemented legislation
(2006) designed to lower contributions to sports facilities at
universities. |
New policy is that all students should
pay towards sports facilities with a HECS-style fee. |
Include sports injuries as a priority area for research bodies such as the National Health and Medical Research Council (4). |
No policy |
No policy |
Allow private health insurance companies to modify premiums in response to voluntary risk factors. (5) |
Against. |
Against. |
Emulate New Zealand's approach to sports injuries by developing a government body devoted to managing and preventing sports injuries. |
No policy |
No policy |
- The best recent estimate is $2 billion dollars p.a. Read about this issue
in the Medical Journal of Australia
.
- The Australian College of Sports Physicians is the only medical college in Australia that is recognised by the government as having fellowship qualifications to practice in a specific area of medicine (sports medicine) but is not considered a ‘specialist' college. The ACSP has had an application to the relevant government body for consideration for specialty status for the last 14 years, but has
still not yet been assessed.
- Health insurance payments for sports injury should take into account scientific evidence (J Sci Med Sport editorial .pdf)
- Currently injury is a priority area for medical research but for some
inexplicable reason, sporting injury is not mentioned as a relevant area
within government publications on the importance of reducing injury.
- Although community rating is a laudable system at preventing the elderly
and sick from paying high private health insurance premiums, it does not
provide the incentives that should be built into the system to keep people
healthy. Smokers, for example, should pay higher premiums than non-smokers,
and exercising people should pay less than sedentary people, as exercise has
multiple health benefits. People with genetic illnesses should continue to
not be penalised for their misfortune but people who suffer from lifestyle
diseases (relating to smoking and lack of exercise) can and should pay higher
premiums.
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