VICTORIAN Premier, John Brumby has delivered a devastating critique of Kevin Rudd's hospital take-over plan, saying it will not achieve the Prime Minister's key goal of ending the blame game between Canberra and the states.
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''How will people know who is managing the system and where the buck stops?'' the Premier asked of Mr Rudd's proposal to take responsibility for 60 per cent of hospital funding.
Making it clear Mr Rudd faces a monumental task in winning over the premiers on health policy before this year's federal election, Mr Brumby's office last night released a list of Victoria's top 10 problems with the PM's plan.
The Premier reiterated his demand for an immediate $1.2-billion-a-year boost in federal funds for Victoria's hospitals, while calling on Mr Rudd to release comprehensive plans for preventative healthcare and to tackle what Mr Brumby calls Australia's aged-care crisis.
The Premier's 10 questions - released after Mr Rudd was widely judged to have beaten federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott in Tuesday's televised debate on health policy - are among 40 issues raised during a telephone hook-up this week between state and territory leaders.
The Brumby hit list has been sent to the Prime Minister's office.
Mr Brumby also warned yesterday that the states might not be able to fund major hospital projects - such as the $1 billion new Royal Children's Hospital - under the federal plan. Touring the Royal Park construction site of the new hospital yesterday, the Premier said one of the big unknowns was capital works for health.
''You'd have to say under the arrangements as they're described at the moment, where there will be a national pool of funding for capital works, I don't know whether a hospital like this [the Royal Children's] would ever be funded,'' he said. ''I can't answer that.''
Federal and state treasurers are meeting today partly to discuss the health plan, with Mr Rudd convening a summit with the premiers on April 19.
Yesterday, Mr Rudd stressed that while there were areas of disagreement with the states, there were also many areas of agreement.
''I look at the current rate of growth of state health budgets, I look at the current rate of growth of their taxation base; the gap that is emerging is getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Someone has got to fill that gap,'' he said.
