The future is female

The ABC our "once benevolent Aunty" has become the source of a love hate relationship for many of the Australian population as she has insidiously become more malevolent. There are voices within Australia calling for Australians to cut ties with their Aunty who is no longer benign.

Our Aunty is now employing more "spin sisters" to sell misery and unhappiness to the women of Australia. Recent articles written by the "Spin Sisters" and published on the ABC website are beginning to show what an Australian female future will look like.

We are told that a Female Future will be a kinder more sensitive, equal, and caring world. I suppose these people have never worked within the female field of nursing or have even heard of the covert problems associated with female bullying called"Relational aggression" otherwise known as "horizontal violence".

"Women more likely to face health costs under Medicare, experts say, raising concerns about 'gender bias.'"

Examining and analysing the shocking claims made in this article which are used to demonstrate a Medicare gender bias, shows a distorted representation of the real facts.

There is no regulation for consultancy fees charged by doctors, and doctors within the same clinical practice can and do charge different consultancy fees for the same procedure. The fees charged by a surgeon for a simple hernia repair, will vary widely across the country.

'Breast cancer left Lisa Evans about $20,000 out of pocket, but the cost of monitoring her health will continue for the rest of her life.

For the 57-year-old, her ongoing expenses are a stark contrast to her brother, who was diagnosed with lung cancer a year after she became ill.

"He hasn't paid anything near what I paid," she said.

"I don't understand why I'm paying. The costs have been debilitating."'

She is one of many people questioning whether costs in the health system disproportionately disadvantage women.

As member of the ABC's specialist reporting team Walkley Award winner, Alison Branley begins her article with the highly emotive hook "Breast Cancer" and how it left Lisa Evans financially out of pocket. Lisa then goes on to say that her brother's lung cancer cost him nothing.

For the lazy intellectual this appears to be so shocking, but the reader is being tricked.

Firstly, breast cancer and lung cancer are two very different diseases and the way they are medically and surgically treated is also vastly different.

Secondly, how breast cancer is treated and managed in women varies enormously due to a wide variety of factors, such as the type of cancer, how widespread it is, etcetera. Surgeons and Oncologists fees are not regulated in the Private sector, so the costs each woman experiences will vary enormously depending on where she lives, for example, Sydney North shore compared to Wagga Wagga.

Thirdly, it is her use of gender - women versus men, female breast cancer versus male lung cancer - which is used to trick the brain. Women also experience lung cancer, and for women who are treated for lung cancer, their costs will be totally different to the costs for women who are treated for breast cancer.

My first cousin was also treated for breast cancer and according to her as a breast cancer survivor, her out of pocket expenses amounted to a few hundred dollars.

An initial pregnancy ultrasound, used to determine whether a woman is pregnant, costs more than a basic ultrasound on a man's scrotum.", Alison Branley. How can anyone compare the cost of two different ultrasonic procedures performed on a pregnant woman and man's scrotum?

Firstly, for those who are not familiar with the female anatomy the uterus is an internal organ that normally sits low on the pelvic floor. For the sonographer to be able to image the uterus in the early stages of pregnancy, the ultrasound requires for the woman to have a full bladder, otherwise the sonographer will have difficulty in obtaining an image of the uterus an internal organ. At the same time if a foetus is present, measurements will be taken to determine the age of the gestation by the sonographer. With the increasing level of obesity in the population this procedure is becoming a much more difficult to perform.

The scrotum is an external organ and is far easier and simpler to perform a scan. Unlike the uterus, usually no babies are found in a scrotum.

The ABC specialist investigative team raises three key points.

Key points:

• Data shows women spend more on out-of-pocket medical costs than men.
• Doctors and patients got in touch with the ABC following a story on increasing medical imaging costs.
• Experts say there is a systemic "underinvestment" in women's health.

The first key point that women spend more than men on out-of-pocket expenses, seems to demonstrate a gender bias. However,the real factor is women, regardless of being pregnant or not, visit the doctor ona more regular basis than men and for reproduction issues that do not affect men.

The second key point points to the increasing medical imaging costs.

The medical diagnostic services industry in Australia has, in many instances been privatised, and some of these companies are listed on the stock exchange. So again, fees charged by these private companies are not regulated by governments. Shareholder return is the number one priority of companies listed on the stock exchange.

"Under Investment in Women's Health", such a broad sweeping statement, plays on the emotive idea that women are being neglected, and this is a very good example of the gamma bias.

The Medicare rebate levy is determined by the Federal Government, the fees charged by obstetricians and gynaecologists are unregulated. Last century, in order to reduce out of pocket expenses for women, the Medicare rebate for obstetric procedures was increased, and within a short period of time the Obstetricians raised their consultancy fees, cancelling any cost saving benefit for obstetric patients.

Men have higher death rates at all ages and report more serious conditions than women. Women report the less serious conditions more often than men and assess their own health more negatively……. On the other hand, women who report the less serious conditions more often, are more likely to visit the doctor.

Men die earlier but women's health gets four times more funding.

Since funding for women's health is four times greater than the funding available for men's health issues, we have to wonder where the real gender bias lies.

The data from the ABS demonstrate that there are two factors at play as to why men have lower out of pocket health care costs than women.

Firstly, men do not visit the doctor as frequently as women. Secondly, men have a shorter life span than the female population.

The federal government unveiled a $3.5 billion Women's Budget. There is no parallel budget funding for men's health.

Even excluding pregnancy-related visits, women were 33 percent more likely than men to visit a doctor, the reason being, annual examinations and preventive services were 100 percent higher for women than for men, and medication patterns differed significantly.

In a statement, a spokesperson for the Federal Health Department said"the government's National Women's Health Strategy recognised gender could shape health outcomes, and it had established a National Women's Health Advisory Council to advise the government on ways to improve health for women and girls".

It becomes apparent that the "Spin Sisters" employed by the ABS are following the same script that Professor Janice Fiamengo had been taughtduring her undergraduate years. She talks about it in her interview with Paul Elam.

…basic fact of history never encountered it honestly read you know hundreds of texts of feminists and just basic you know women's history nobody talked about that fact…. the indoctrination was complete…basic facts that were hidden from me… I just assumed that it must be true…that the whole history of the human race was the history of women being disadvantaged to marginalizes and struggling for their freedom and struggling for their rights…" [emphasis added]

Janice as an undergraduate said, "I wasn't interested in hearing the alternative viewpoint of course". This is statement reflects the reality that the "spin sisters" are not at all interested in hearing or even considering alternative points of view, especially views when those points of view are contrary to what they were indoctrinated into believing was true during their undergraduate years.