A response to the Australian Health Care Agreements series.

The health care system offered by Australian Governments to its citizens is one of universal access and entitlement to needs based health, hospital and aged care at zero or limited cost. The system includes programmes for hospital care, medical care, pharmaceuticals and aged care. Every citizen is entitled to make use of any part of the system, whether they have contributed to the cost of such use, or not. There are effectively no means tests, although some citizens may have discounts applied to their out of pocket costs, e.g. pensioners are effectively entitled to free pharmaceuticals.