As Bernard Keane reported on Crikey‘s Stump blog, Kevin Rudd kicked off his election campaign yesterday by announcing the government’s plans for public hospital reform including much greater federal control over state-run facilities, GP and primary health care services and a shake-up of funding.

The announcement has been predictably met with a mixed bag of responses — doctors like it, many State governments don’t, and subeditors across the land are having a field day with bad medical puns.

On Crikey‘s health blog, Croakey, the analysis came thick and fast:

Melissa Sweet: For Rudd, it’s all about hospitals, hospitals, hospitals…

Not much mention at all of the need for greater community and patient engagement – it’s all about empowering doctors and nurses, apparently.

Ben Harris-Roxas: So what is Rudd actually trying to achieve in health? And enough of the jokes, thanks

At the end of the Prime Minister’s Press Club speech I was left wondering ‘what do they hope to achieve?’ It wasn’t at all clear from what was announced.

Sebastian Rosenberg: Meanwhile, mental health stays on the waiting list…

In fact, the report really aims to shore up a hospital system well-suited to a 19th century model of hospital-centric care.  This is not reform.

Ian McAuley: The PM’s health announcements — a promising start

… the Commonwealth, while drawing on many of the commonsense recommendations of the National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission, has wisely ignored two of the Commission’s more outrageous suggestion

Margo Saunders: Are hospitals or health the goal?

The Government’s continuing reluctance to curb the marketing enthusiasm of tobacco, alcohol and junk food companies and its rhetoric about ‘lifestyle risk factors’ and ‘healthy eating’ are falling short of a visionary, or even serious, approach.

And here’s what the mainstream media pundits have to say:

The Australian

Editorial: Hospital funding plan not a comprehensive cure

… it is hardly the miraculous political medicine the government’s build-up to the announcement encouraged us to expect.

Dennis Shanahan: PM stakes his reputation on big-bang health reform

A referendum battle is distracting and draining for a government and doomed to fail if it does not have bipartisan support and the backing of the states.

Adam Cresswell: Tough medicine left for another day

Voters are in effect being told to trust the government, to “wait and see”, when they have already been waiting for more than two years for the government’s solutions.

George Megalogenis, Meganomics blog: Premiers win, despite GST hijacking

To make health a national responsibility, Kevin Rudd has to remake the GST.

Sydney Morning Herald

Editorial: Federal triage for sick system

In the absence of a convincing alternative vision for the future of healthcare, the government’s reform process should be allowed to unroll.

Peter Hartcher: PM scrubs up for his toughest operation

By taking policy control of hospitals from the states, Rudd’s National Health and Hospital Network is one of the most ambitious reforms in the history of the Federation.

Lenore Taylor: Graphs galore but answers to big hospital reform questions are scarce

… there appears to be a few things the Commonwealth isn’t telling us yet.

The Age

Editorial: Rudd prescribes huge dose of change in health

As early as 2004, the current opposition leader mooted a federal takeover of hospitals, but thought it impossible to get all states to agree. That is Mr Rudd’s challenge.

Michelle Grattan: A dose of political reality may undo that Ruddy glow

Kevin Rudd has put forward a bold and measured plan for hospitals reform, but he’ll have a battle to translate it into reality any time soon.

Daily Telegraph

Sue Dunlevy: Rudd’s reforms will put hospital heads in the gun

If the prices for hospital services don’t keep pace with health inflation, as has happened with the Medicare rebate system, patients will lose out.

Malcolm Farr: Rudd goes for the doctor, and the voter

[Rudd] wants voters, now a little short on confidence in his ability to deliver, to give him the go-ahead at the election expected late in the year.

Herald Sun

Grant McArthur: Rudd’s move healthy – if it works

To cut out central bureaucracies and hand control of hospitals directly to their local areas gives doctors what they have been demanding for years.

Phillip Hudson: Big, bold gamble or unhealthy risk?

If he can pull it off it will be a great triumph, but it relies on agreement from all the states and the Senate.

ABC

Stephen Leeder: The feds are coming to a hospital near you

Rudd has promised a health reform agenda that is revolutionary, not incremental.

Elsewhere…

Paul Colgan, The Punch: Rudd asks for the 3am phone call about a hospital problem

… the next time a woman miscarries in a hospital toilet, Rudd or at least his health minister Nicola Roxon should be ready for that phone call in the middle of the night looking for an explanation.

Grog, Grog’s Gamut: Rudd checks the nation’s pulse

All Rudd has to do is get the states to agree to it, and then get it through the Senate. Oh good, I was worried for a minute it might be difficult.

Peter Brent, Mumble: You be careful with that referendum, Mr Rudd

Kevin Rudd is threatening the states with a constitutional referendum on health … A constitutional referendum needs bipartisan support to have a chance of success.