Rudd battles the COAG clock on hospitals

With the clock ticking down to COAG, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will have to work
overtime to win over a new Tasmanian leader to his health and hospitals reform plan.
His latest meeting with NSW Premier Kristina Keneally on Thursday was described as
"positive, productive and constructive" by his office.
The atmospherics - warmth and cordiality - were certainly better than their last
engagement, where Mr Rudd appeared to be giving the likeable NSW leader the cold
shoulder, a charge they both denied.
And productive though it may have been, no deal was struck between the two leaders.
"The prime minister and the premier worked through a range of key aspects of health
reform in detail," a spokesman for Mr Rudd said.
"The prime minister looks forward to continuing to work with Premier Keneally in the
lead up to COAG."
Mr Rudd is trying to get states and territories to agree to his proposal for the
commonwealth to take majority control of funding for public hospitals before the
Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting on April 19.
There was no deal when he spent two days this week wooing Victorian Premier John
Brumby, and there remains a gulf between what Mr Rudd is offering and what the state
wants.
Now the prime minister has less than three weeks to convince the likely new
Tasmanian leader Will Hodgman to the merits of his policy.
Labor Premier David Bartlett has conceded the state election to the Liberals,
essentially offering Mr Hodgman the poisoned chalice of minority government.
Mr Rudd is planning to take a break over Easter but will have to move into high gear
when he returns to work next week to get the support he needs from the states in the
fortnight before COAG.
Health Minister Nicola Roxon, who was in South Australia bedding down support for
the plan, showed no sign that the government was planning to budge to demands from
Victoria and Western Australia for the federal health model to be changed.
"We're taking ... seriously our discussion with all of the premiers, but we believe
that the model that we have is the right one," she told ABC TV.
"There's still a couple of weeks to go until COAG where a whole range of issues will
continue to be discussed.
"But we believe we can deliver better health and better hospital services through
our plan and that's what we'll be pursuing."