THE federal government has again ruled out taking over Tasmania's ailing health system, despite threatening to bypass other states and territories to directly fund hospitals.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard issued the warning on Wednesday after deciding to reverse a $107 million cut to Victorian hospitals with the money to be paid straight into hospitals' bank accounts, rather than going via the health department.
The move has been described as a ``partial takeover'' and Ms Gillard said she would do the same to any other states caught playing politics with health and deduct money from other area's of their budgets.
However, rather than viewing it as a punishment, the Tasmanian government is keen for the federal government to take over its health system.
In 2011, the state and federal governments discussed the idea of trialling a single-funder model in the state, but the talks did not lead to any changes.
Yesterday, Tasmanian Health Minister Michelle O'Byrne said she had no plans to raise the matter again, but was open to discussing it further at any time.
``I have long been on the record that a single-funding model is needed in the future to ensure long-term secure health funding that allows the provision of high-quality health services in a society with high health inflation, and an ageing population,'' Ms O'Byrne said.
``These reforms are only recent, and, to be fair, need to be assessed over a reasonable period of time, although I would maintain that, particularly for a small state such as Tasmania, a single-funding model is likely to be the best solution in the long term.''
A spokesman for Federal Health Minister Tanya Plibersek said the Commonwealth was not considering taking over the state's health system.
He said Ms Plibersek would reply to a letter sent by Ms O'Byrne earlier this week to ``state very clearly that there is not a single extra cent that will be given to the Victorian government.''
``The Minister looks forward to continuing to work co-operatively with the Tasmanian government on the implementation of the Commonwealth's $325 million Tasmanian health package.''