Nicola Roxon (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

I hear interjections from those who are ill-informed opposite, asking me about the cost of equipment. People would be aware that the Medicare benefits schedule pays for services provided. It is not intended to pay for the cost of equipment. It has never paid for the cost of equipment. When we are going to repeatedly run a health system where the costs and investments go up, when we have new technology that people want to access and when we have new drugs that people want to access then we have to be prepared to take some decisions to scale costs down where medical advances have provided a benefit to the community. This is one of those instances, and we do not resile from those changes in the budget.

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