No outcome on federal health reforms

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has to do more than win over state and territory leaders
to his planned major overhaul of the nation's health system.
"He's going to have to deal with the Senate," Australian Greens leader Bob Brown
warned the prime minister on Sunday.
Later Mr Rudd rounded off a three-state visit by meeting Victorian Premier John
Brumby in Melbourne for talks he described as "a good, positive, constructive
conversation".
Mr Brumby agreed the meeting was positive but said the two leaders were "way apart".
"But we'll work to see how close together we can get," he told reporters.
On Saturday Mr Rudd met with Queensland Premier Anna Bligh in Brisbane, a day after
discussions with NSW leader Kristina Keneally in Sydney.
Mr Rudd plans to meet other premiers and the chief ministers of the ACT and Northern
Territory before a meeting of all leaders in April.
The government wants the state and territories to allow the commonwealth to take
over 60 per cent of funding for state-run public hospitals, redirecting some of
their GST revenue to pay for it.
Mr Rudd said he had been encouraged by his meetings so far and the attitudes of the
three Labor premiers.
"The challenge we now have is to agree on the path, the precise path, to get there,"
he told reporters after his meeting with Mr Brumby.
"It would be wrong for me to say that everything with all the states has been
resolved overnight - of course that's not the case."
In a change from his initial bullish approach to pushing his plan past the states
and to a referendum at the next election, Mr Rudd said it was "quite reasonable" for
premiers and territory leaders to raise questions on details.
"We are doing that. We are working our way through it."
Senator Brown also wants a face-to-face meeting with the prime minister to discuss
his party's support for the plan.
While the Greens say they are in a positive frame of mind about Mr Rudd's plan, they
are keen to garner "better outcomes".
They want to be assured that there will be no wide-scale closures of regional health
services.
"We also want to know about dental health care," Senator Brown told reporters in
Canberra, adding the Greens wanted a universal dental healthcare system.
The government has yet to respond to that idea, which was a key recommendation of a
National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission review which Health Minister Nicola
Roxon has been sitting on since July.
The opposition, meanwhile, continues to dismiss Mr Rudd's reforms, saying they are
designed to fail because the states would still run public hospitals and be
responsible for 40 per cent of their funding.
"They will still employ the doctors and nurses," Deputy Opposition Leader Julie
Bishop told the Nine Network.
The states and territories were unlikely to agree to the plan while the
recommendations of the Henry tax review remained a secret, she said.
But Mr Rudd says they have no cause to worry.
"There'll be no net negative financial impact for any state or any territory," he
said of his government's likely response to the review.