Most Australians are willing to pay higher taxes to provide quality healthcare for all Australians, according to a new study published in the Medical Journal of Australia.

Dr Elizabeth Hardie and Dr Christine Critchley, researchers at Swinburne University of Technology interviewed 800 Australians from every state and territory about their attitudes to doctors, hospitals and health care systems.

“Our data showed that there are very high levels of trust in Australian healthcare professionals, however Australians want a better public health care system,” Hardie said.

“Overwhelmingly our sample said they were willing to pay higher taxes to have an improved healthcare system that would provide quality healthcare for all Australians. They trust their doctors, they trust the Medicare system, but they really want to improve that system.”

The results showed that general practitioners were deemed more trustworthy than specialists or hospitals. Trust ratings for non-traditional practitioners were very low, however, these alternative practitioners were trusted more by women than by men.

Hardie said the respondents also endorsed the current health care system, and had fairly-weak ‘pro-private’ attitudes and strong ‘pro-public’ attitudes.

The sample had mixed views on hospitals and health care systems with greater trust in private hospitals than in public hospitals, but greater trust in public (Medicare) than private (health insurer) systems.

“Everybody knows that public hospitals have been under pressure, they’re under-funded and under-resourced, therefore people might think there is reason to trust private hospitals which are better resourced,” Hardie said.

“Australians have faith in the system but believe that the system can be better. The public understands that professionals working within the system are doing the best they can with the resources they have.”

The researchers also measured people’s attitudes toward paying higher taxes in order to have a better public health system.

“We asked them about having a US-style user-pays system and attitudes were very negative for those questions. Overall we found that Australians were very much in favour of publicly funded healthcare,” Hardie said.