Franking Credits should be cut back and a Junk Food Tax added to fund adding key dental procedures to Medicare*.

(*Excluding Conservative Electorates – see One Country, Two Systems)

Poor dental care drives a range of other health problems.

Junk Food Tax

This could be levied on retailers that stock junk ‘food’ products that cause ill-health and could be proportional to the retailers floor area.

This is likely to be based on sugar content per gram but may consider other factors that make products toxic.

Sugary soft drinks, cake and biscuits would be early targets.

This tax would be set at a level to deter sale of junk products rather than to raise revenue.

Specialist Fees

High fees for specialists has become a major problem.

One option might be to provide free staffed consulting rooms for specialists who are prepared to bulk bill their services. Forgiving student debt for these specialists could also be considered.

The Government would pay for the rooms, IT, reception staff and possibly nurses.

No Medicare Levy Surcharge

Currently this is levied on your income tax if you don’t have private health insurance.

This should be scrapped as many Australians may not need private health cover if Medicare included essential dental work.

Money saved from funding the private health insurance rebate can be re-directed to the public health system.

Limits to Medicare

Citizens who deliberately ignore key health advise should not receive the full benefits of Medicare. This could include persons:

• Refusing key vaccinations and thereby risk spreading disease in the community. (Except for Conservative Zones)
• Continuing to smoke / vape (Note that to better control criminal activity we recommend cutting tobacco excise on legal cigarettes)
• Refusing mainstream scientific health advise and treatments and then demanding expensive medical treatments when that goes wrong.
• Live in a municipality that refuses to fluoridate the water supply.

Consideration would need to be given to persons with mental health issues who maybe unable to make healthy choices.