Went to a do a bit of shopping this morning - the Gods were smiling on me again.
First stop was the bakery, bought my usual black rye, a broad bean and fetta thingme, and some lemon tarts. The baker and I have a little ritual with her bagging my purchases and me swiping my card. My part wasn't working today -- because she hadn't entered the purchases on her iPad. And she point blank refused to do so -- because it was Christmas - bless her
Second stop was the pharmacist. My monthly scrips usually cost me thirty something dollars. Today the young lady that served me asked for eleven dollars. When I said that can't be right, she said you've exceeded the cap so the remaining items are free. I'd forgotten how generous our pharma benefits scheme is. It has an annual safety net.
If you have a concession card then once you've spent more than $316.80 on medicines in a year, all additional medicines are free. I take 6 medicines a day and its taken me almost 12 months to reach the cap.
If you don't have a concession card the safety net cap is $1,486.80. Once you exceed that you pay $6.60 for each one month scrip. Families, couples etc can pool their 'PBS Accounts' so that the safety net kicks in sooner.
They just put a new drug onto the scheme to treat a rare form of cancer. So, instead of having to find $8,000 a month sufferers can get it for $41.00, or $6.60 if they have a concession card.
Whilst we are fortunate to have our health care system (Medicare), we are even more fortunate to have a public health system that for the most part works incredibly well. The state of Victoria did have a major problem with its quarantine program, but if we exclude the consequences of that we have had less than 3,000 locally acquired covid infections and less than a 100 covid deaths. That's up there with the likes of New Zealand, Taiwan, etc.
Added: apart from Melbourne, other parts of Australia have not had harsh confinement measures and curfews (like New Zealand had), nor have masks been made mandatory. In New South Wales, where I live, the response has been text book test, trace and isolate - but not the mass enforced testing you might see see in China, and now in some parts of Europe. Other states have resorted to closing their borders if someone on the other side of it so much as sneezes.
Third stop was the supermarket, where, predictably I bought more than I intended, so rather than walking the 3km home with three bags of shopping I hailed a cab. Guess what, after I pay the driver the eight bucks - he hops out of the cab opens the other rear door grabs my shopping bags and carries them to my front door - how good is that
BR