Tim Dunlop breaks down some of the figures on federal-state proportional funding for hospitals:

In trying to untangle the rhetoric from both parties about their hospital policies the other day, one aspect I only touched on was the issue of funding. I noted that “the Federal Government…seems to be using the moment to decrease the amount of money they put into the system. The usual split between State and Commonwealth is 50/50, though under Mr Abbott the federal share has dropped to about 45%. The Health Minister is now talking in terms of a 40% Commonwealth share, at a time when costs are rising.”

In fact, a new report from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare indicates that the Federal funding share has already dropped to 41% of the total.

Tim talks about the implications of this in terms of the Coalition’s new policy of forming local hospital boards, but it’s worth noting what this says about the historical situation. State governments (or, at the very least, some of them) have been increasing their spending on the health system in an attempt to improve one of the most vital services a government can provide. Meanwhile, the Commonwealth has allowed its investment in health to slip so that the states are shouldering more of the burden than ever before. Meanwhile, the federal Government happily attacks the states on two fronts: (i) they aren’t operating health services at an adequate level, and (ii) state governments running into debt are responsible for interest rate rises.

In other words, the Commonwealth keeps the money in their very deep pockets (all the better to fund advertising campaigns with), and they get to hit the states for both spending too much and not spending enough.

If you want to hear what the other side of politics is saying, Nicola Roxon has a piece in the GG today.