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

I thank the member for Hindmarsh for this question. It is a good day to be asking the question because today we are tabling the cataract regulation changes in the House. They will be tabled again in the Senate next week. The Rudd government is determined that we are going to be able to reform our health system to make it sustainable and fairer into the future. To do this we cannot reform our health system unless we make some of these hard decisions. That includes us making decisions about where we direct our finite taxpayer resources to ensure that we get best value for money. This is why the government made the decision at the last budget to adjust the Medicare fees for cataracts to better reflect the time and complexity of the procedure. The fee for this one common procedure has been reduced. This procedure commonly takes 15 to 20 minutes now. Whilst people might dispute this, it is not my view that it takes 15 to 20 minutes; it is advice from the Fred Hollows Foundation, the Australian Institute of Eye Surgery and the British Medical Journal.

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