The Unseen Heft of Australia's Medical Device Price Fixing Australia's medical device market is a peculiar beast, where 14 million privately insured Australians pay some of the world's highest prices for surgical hardware.
At its core lies an obscure price setting schedule called the Prescribed List, which dictates what private health funds must pay hospitals for over 10,000 items – from pacemakers and artificial joints to surgical staples, sponges, and glues.
This system has been in place since 2018, when then health minister Greg Hunt made a deal that went against his own department's advice.