There was something unseemly about the round of crowing that followed the release of the National Health and Medical Research Council’s report on homeopathy. The report itself was unobjectionable: It found there is no evidence homeopathy works – which is unsurprising, since if alternative medicines were supported by science they wouldn’t be ‘alternative’.
But before jumping on the anti-homeopathy bandwagon, you should consider that the report and its champions were motivated as much by a political agenda as by any high-minded fidelity to science.
Homeopathy is not covered under Medicare, so the government does not subsidise it directly. However, the private health insurance rebate can go toward plans that cover natural therapies.
Supporters of the NHMRC report have called for an end to this indirect subsidy. But as Health Minister Sussan Ley pointed out, “It’s not as simple as turning off the tap for one type of treatment.” The rebate goes toward a person’s whole policy, making it difficult to separate out any particular component like homeopathy.
Insurance companies have obviously found that including natural therapies in some of their insurance plans attracts customers. The government should not try to micromanage these kinds of business decisions, certainly not if the result will be to make private health insurance less attractive.
But for many in the anti-homeopathy crowd, making private health insurance less attractive is the whole point.
The reason the NHMRC looked into homeopathy in the first place was that the previous Labor government commissioned a whole spate of reviews into the private health insurance rebate. This was around the time the rebate became means-tested, which for some was a second-best alternative to abolishing it entirely.
The private health insurance rebate is a subject on which there is plenty of room for debate – unlike homeopathy. We should not allow these two separate conversations to get mixed up by opportunists posing as champions of science.
Helen Andrews is a Policy Analyst at the Centre for Independent Studies.
Home > Commentary > Opinion > Not pro-homeopathy, but anti-anti-homeopathy
Not pro-homeopathy, but anti-anti-homeopathy
But before jumping on the anti-homeopathy bandwagon, you should consider that the report and its champions were motivated as much by a political agenda as by any high-minded fidelity to science.
Homeopathy is not covered under Medicare, so the government does not subsidise it directly. However, the private health insurance rebate can go toward plans that cover natural therapies.
Supporters of the NHMRC report have called for an end to this indirect subsidy. But as Health Minister Sussan Ley pointed out, “It’s not as simple as turning off the tap for one type of treatment.” The rebate goes toward a person’s whole policy, making it difficult to separate out any particular component like homeopathy.
Insurance companies have obviously found that including natural therapies in some of their insurance plans attracts customers. The government should not try to micromanage these kinds of business decisions, certainly not if the result will be to make private health insurance less attractive.
But for many in the anti-homeopathy crowd, making private health insurance less attractive is the whole point.
The reason the NHMRC looked into homeopathy in the first place was that the previous Labor government commissioned a whole spate of reviews into the private health insurance rebate. This was around the time the rebate became means-tested, which for some was a second-best alternative to abolishing it entirely.
The private health insurance rebate is a subject on which there is plenty of room for debate – unlike homeopathy. We should not allow these two separate conversations to get mixed up by opportunists posing as champions of science.
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