"Well, I have to agree to disagree with you on this point.

The State pays for and regulates just about every aspect of our bodies from the day we are born to the day we die.

If you want to keep your organs and feed them to the worms or send them up a chimney as even more carbon emissions, that should be your option, but if you don't have an option, your arse should belong to the State .... they paid enough for it!"

I still maintain that the State belongs to the people. When you say that the "State pays for and regulates just about every aspect of our bodies", where does the State get the money to pay for these things? It gets it from the people, through taxes, rates and charges for services. Look up the meaning of the word 'commonwealth'.

If the people, through a referendum, decide that an opt-out system of organ donation would be to the benefit of the community, then the people's elected representatives should enact legislation to authorise the harvesting of organs as a matter of course. Those non-community-minded individuals who still wished to take their organs to heaven would, of course, be free to opt out of the system. Their bodies are still their own, not the State's.

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Maybe an additional 1% on the Medicare levy would offset the cost.

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"I wonder what Jesus would say if he entered our abboitoirs....."

I don't want to enter our abboitoirs...I don't want to know

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HECS is a form of debt. Debt should be used as a means to increase wealth, not to take away from those amongst us who are unfortunate enough to incur poor health. Poor health can be devastating in many ways (and often comes completely unexpectedly). When you suffer from poor health, you also suffer financially - even if you can afford private health insurance.

HECS is an excellent way to contribute to the cost of achieving higher education (I think it is possibly the best system in the world for this). However, it is inappropriate to apply it to our health system. The health system quite appropriately consists of a mixture of public and private health care. It is essential that the highest standard of care is available to all, regardless of wealth or social standing. Many may not realise it, but if you are gravely ill, the safest place to be is in a public hospital where health dollars may be spent on you in financially inefficient ways that optimise your recovery. If you are not gravely ill, and have time to consider your health care options, then private health care may be the best option for you. Our private health care system caters brilliantly to the financially efficient areas of medicine.

An example - caring for someone who has suffered multiple trauma in a road accident is financially inefficient. They may require a long stay in an intensive care unit (expensive), multiple operations (expensive) and suffer multiple complications (expensive). They may not earn an income again for a long time, if at all. We must have a public health system that runs efficiently so that it may provide these financially inefficient care options to us, yet not also punish us individually in a manner directly related to the incurred cost of that care.

We are a society. We must remember that that entails looking after each other if we need it. A high quality public health system is an essential component of that.

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