Medicare Gold: a bird without wings.

"Medicare Gold", was the grand notion that was supposed to win the federal opposition party and the ghastly Julia Gillard in particular, the last election.

"All persons over the age of seventy-five will be eligible for free health care in private facilities", she boasted.

If you haven't noticed, the world's population is aging. You only have to look around you to know there are already a lot, and I mean a LOT of people over the age of 75. Moreover, the number of sick over seventy-fives is set to explode as so many of the baby-boomers fall ill with obesity-induced diseases.

Conveniently, the opposition party has forgotton that health care actually needs doctors. Not just surgeons but physicians as well.

As one of those physicians who, presumably, was going to have to look after all those over seventy-fives in the private sector, my response was "Ha!! You and what army are going to make me!!"

I'm sure most of my colleagues were thinking exactly the same thing.

Thankfully, Medicare Gold seems to have gone the way of the DoDo.