Medicare Australia and australia.gov.au merging. Improvement or “improvement”?
20 December 2011:
I am a very rare user of Medicare Australia, and I hope to stay this way. Today was one of those rare occasions when I needed to log in medicareaustralia.gov.au website. After going through the long process of entering all the required numbers, names, passwords, addresses and secret answers, I was unpleasantly surprised by a new additional question “Do you have an existing australia.gov.au account?”
If you choose “No”, you will be redirected to australia.gov.au website to register and create an account there. If you choose “Yes”, you will be redirected to australia.gov.au and told to use your australia.gov.au user ID and password to login to australia.gov.au, and access your Medicare data from there. Then redirection accompanied by statements about improvements: “We are improving our online services. From 3 December 2011, you will be required to register for an australia.gov.au account when you log on to your existing Medicare Online Services.”
It would be easier to believe that moving everyone to australia.gov.au was an improvement if:
1. There was some flexibility.
Users should still be allowed to access their account in medicareaustralia.gov.au and choose to postpone registration in australia.gov.au. What if they need to access their Medicare information right now and don’t have time for creating a new account and figuring out how to use a new website?
2. It wasn’t a process of putting all eggs in one basket.
The text, that is meant to convince users, says “Having an australia.gov.au account means you only have to remember: one user ID, one password, one website to access all your Online Services account”. The users could use the same password for different services without being forced to a new website, but each service or company always recommends to use different credentials for security reasons: if one part of the system was compromised, the rest stays protected. Now it seems to be fine to use one password for everything. Are there no more breaches of privacy and security in the world? I doubt it. This merging means: you lose one password — you lose everything.
3. It wasn’t creating a giant.
It is stated on Medicare and Australian Government websites that “australia.gov.au can be used to access a number of other government agencies - including Centrelink, the Child Support Agency and Medicare Australia”. What if the users don’t need Centrelink or the Child Support Agency? Why should they register for a service, the only purpose of which is to link three things, if they only need one? And then, by merging separate websites and services into a bigger thing, one creates a bigger chance for something to go wrong and smaller chance for finding who is responsible for any error, let alone the difficulty of fixing the error.
There are already mismatches and discrepancies (see point 4).
4. It wasn’t a situation when one hand doesn’t know what the other one is doing.
Medicare website says “We are making it easier for you to use Medicare Australia Online Services. The first step requires you to have an australia.gov.au account”, persistently throws the users who are trying to log in medicareaustralia.gov.au to australia.gov.au and forces them to register there. No choice, no way around.
When the very same users try to register for australia.gov.au, they have to read the Terms and Conditions, which state that “You may choose not to have an australia.gov.au Account”. So, “must” or “may”? Quite a difference!
Or does it mean one may choose not to have australia.gov.au account ,but the person loses access to the Medicare online? If so, it sounds like “You may choose not to breath” = the choice is up to you but you will lose ability to live.
5. If the australia.gov.au account did not expire and was not deleted every 18 months if the user did not use it during that period.
“You may close your australia.gov.au Account online at australia.gov.au. If you do not access your australia.gov.au Account for eighteen (18) months, your australia.gov.au Account will be closed. If your australia.gov.au Account is closed, we will delete the information you provided, including your secret questions and answers. Closure of your australia.gov.au Account will not affect your access to other Participating Agency online accounts.”
It is very nice that the users are given the choice to delete their account and information, but why force them to use the site? Medicare account did not have the expiration condition. So, if you are healthy and need your Medicare once every couple of years — too bad.
There is another incorrect promise: “Closure of your australia.gov.au Account will not affect your access to other Participating Agency online accounts”. It basically says that the users can access their Medicare account without having an australia.gov.au account. That is wrong! They cannot access their their Medicare account. That was the very reason why this article has been written.
If thing were the way australia.gov.au says, I wouldn’t be writing this, and you wouldn’t be reading it.
6. There was a substantial reason behind it.
After creating an australia.gov.au account, being assigned with an absolutely meaningless user ID that consists of random letters and numbers, being told to remember that ID, otherwise the access to this account will be lost forever, and linking Medicare account to australia.gov.au, the users can log in australia.gov.au, go to My Account tab and finally click Medicare Australia link in My Linked Accounts section. And... the users are redirected to the old medicareaustralia.gov.au site, which has the same address, the same look and the same functionality as before.
Question: What does anyone who just wants to access their Medicare account need australia.gov.au for?
Answer: For no apparent reason.
I hope there is a reason and I simply [even after a decade of creating and maintaining websites] can’t figure it out. I do hope that it is something more than an attempt to create an illusion of one big cool e-Australia. E-Australia will happen when each website is quick to load, easy to use and hard to hack; not when many slow and complicated websites are merged into one.
7. It wasn’t another step towards deprivation of personal privacy.
The lumping of many government departments and non-government instances together means that people are losing control over how their personal information is collected, stored, used, shared, exchanged, accessed and disclosed. For example, since the integration of Medicare Australia into the Department of Human Services in 2011, there is no more Privacy Policy on the Medicare website (the only Privacy & security notice available only concerns the use of the website itself). In turn, the Department of Human Services refers the people to the Freedom of Information Act 1982 and does not provide any clear outline about the collection, storage, usage and disclosure of the people’s personal information either. Medicare is not just about “delivering affordable health care to Australians” anymore, it became the largest collector and distributor of personal information in Australia. It collects and holds private, personal and sensitive information about all Australians right from the moment of their birth, whether they wanted it or not. It also provides this information to other government and non-government agencies for various purposes, of which the people are neither notified, nor ever consented to.
Instead of a Conclusion
If the Health part of Australian Government really wants to make some improvements, it should do the following:
1. Abolish the division of the heath care system by states and incorporate all the most progressive state legislations into a uniformed national heath care system.
The state-governed health care creates big obstacles for recognition of medical workers’ training, encourages excessive bureaucracy, and is a huge inconvenience for the patients who move interstate.
2. Outlaw the medical practices where the willing patients have little or no say in every decision about their health; are not presented with complete information about their conditions, risks and options; are not given full, free and unconditional access to their medical records and diagnostic test results. (see article Your health, your body — your right, your choice)
3. Accept and legislate that every sound-minded person can decide about their body, which, besides any medical screening and treatment, must include abortion and euthanasia.
4. Keep politics and religions away from people’s heath and bodily autonomy.
Things like abortion and euthanasia must not be the decision of politicians or religiously influenced powers. They must be available as an unobstructed choice, and must be the decision of every person and their loved ones. Only the individuals should decide whether there is a place for politics or religion in their own choice.
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