Australian Pioneers in Health Economics: The Origins of Medicare

Medicare is now 40 years old, but the blueprint was developed in the 1960s by John Deeble and Richard Scotton working at the Melbourne Institute. Starting with a desire to understand the Australian health system of the early1960s, Deeble and Scotton collected much information and data on the provision of health services and their financing. This led them to be highly critical of the health system and, in response to a challenge from the Labor leader, Gough Whitlam, the development of a new system which we now know as Medicare .