Scrawl on some eyebrows and it's as if John Howard was back from the dead.

The Coalition will also block budget plans to lift the Medicare surcharge to enable more people to choose not to have private health insurance without being penalised. The Government believes 485,000 people will drop private cover. The industry believes 750,000 policies will go and the Coalition believes premiums will soar for those who still have insurance.

"We stand up for Australians with private health insurance, we always will," Dr Nelson said.

What Brendan Nelson means when he says "We stand up for Australians with private health insurance" is that he wants to continue the Howard government's policy of putting a gun to the head of young people who aren't on huge salaries, and forcing them to buy private health insurance as a way of dropping the costs for the old fogies and wealthy families who vote Liberal. He means standing up for the private health insurance companies who profit from peoples' ill health. A for-profit health system will never be as good as a strong public health system because it's geared around making money from sick people, not helping them get better. As long as the company's bottom line is nice and cushy, they don't give a stuff.

I was happy to see that Kevin Rudd has worked out a way to keep his stupid election promise on private health but still boost the public system; I would prefer that all taxpayer subsidies to private health be stopped and those billions of dollars poured into the public health system instead, but perhaps in Kevin Rudd's next term we can hope for more.

And what Brendan Nelson wants to do is continue padding the bottom lines of private health insurance companies with taxpayers' money, and lining the pockets of private health insurance company executives.

How is that a policy for Australia?