Ross Hart (Bass, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on this matter of public importance. The topic talks about the government's undermining of Medicare, in particular with its six-year freeze on the Medicare rebate. At their simplest, the principles underpinning the Medicare system are very basic. In this respect, Medicare is an idea. Medicare is a very powerful idea. It is grounded in the universality of the right to receive health care.

The first version of Medicare, the Medibank system—introduced under the Whitlam government—was opposed by the coalition opposition and a sizeable section of the medical profession. Universal health care is a right. It is a universal right for all citizens to receive health care based upon need rather than the ability to pay. That is why we say that you should be accessing health care with your Medicare card rather than with your credit card.

Despite the simplicity of the idea, and despite the recognition by the medical profession over an extended period of time of the effectiveness of the Medicare system, the coalition—with protestations—is no friend to Medicare. The reason why I can say this with confidence is that every action taken by the Liberals in government reveals their agenda to undermine Medicare through undermining the universal application of Medicare. There is no better example of their lack of commitment to universality and the importance of Medicare as a universal health care system than the six-year freeze on Medicare rebates. When health care becomes unaffordable for more and more Australians, the universality principle is undermined.

In 2014 they introduced the freeze, and in 2016 the Prime Minister extended the freeze to 2020. The medical profession, represented by GPs, specialists and health experts, has been very vocal in warning that the freeze has led to a drop in bulk billing and an increase in gap payments, which have to be met by patients. Whilst the government may wish to fudge the issue through vague references to working on lifting the freeze, its agenda is to undermine Medicare by requiring more and more Australians to meet more and more of the cost of their health care.

GPs and patients have borne the brunt of the unfair freezing of the Medicare rebate. The government, in particular under the previous minister for health, constantly spoke of the necessity to ensure that our public health system was sustainable. All of the cuts to health care, all of the freezes which have been imposed upon our public health system are in the name of sustainability, which is the most Orwellian code for the imposition of inappropriate and unsustainable restraint upon our public health system—the sort of restraint which can lead to system failure.

Medicare is sustainable, providing it is adequately resourced. It is of significant concern to me, as a former member of a public health board—the Tasmanian Health Organisation - North, an operator of acute care—that primary health, that is the people who access general practitioners, are underfunded through the Medicare rebate freeze, and also that there is significant pressure upon our public health system, particularly in my electorate of Bass. The Tasmanian public health system is under significant stress, with the Launceston General Hospital struggling to meet demand and struggling to recruit specialists to a well-regarded general hospital.

Public health should include a focus on preventable health as well as chronic and acute care. A failure to adequately resource Medicare, in the form of a freeze on the GP rebate, means that people will delay consulting a medical practitioner. People will present to the emergency departments of our already under-resourced public hospitals, instead of seeking advice at an early stage from a general practitioner.

This Turnbull government is making health care less affordable for every Australian, with the Medicare freeze already forcing GPs to drop bulk billing and increase out-of-pocket expenses. The record of state and federal Liberal governments is poor in health. Their failure to properly fund our public hospitals has seen elective surgery waiting lists blow out. I have been made aware of shameful delays within the Tasmanian public health system. I have been told of patients who have been diagnosed with serious conditions like bowel cancer, who cannot access life-saving surgery within a reasonable time, due to the mismanagement of the public health system.

The insistence that public health funding is growing year after year but not meeting demand, increase in acuity or increase in healthcare inflation, means that the funding of our public health system is constantly under stress, with public health boards constantly searching for efficiencies and savings. I know that in my electorate of Bass voters rejected the underfunding of health, the freezing of the Medicare rebate and the freezing of the pathology billing incentive. My electorate has significant pockets of disadvantage. My electorate values universal health care. (Time expired)

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