Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Manufacturing) Share this | Hansard source

Once again the Turnbull government's Medicare agenda has been exposed, with the government-appointed task force reportedly considering a proposal that would see the Commonwealth's public hospital funding share cut from around 40 per cent to 35 per cent of costs. The leaked confidential reports also confirm that, under the proposal, private health insurance rebates will be abolished and the Commonwealth would not provide any support for health insurance extras such as physiotherapy and dental costs.

First it was an attack on doctors, with a six-year freeze on doctors' Medicare rebates and then a proposal for a $7 GP co-payment, which went to $5 and then $20. And now it seems the target is public hospitals. Having already cut billions of dollars from public hospital funding, if the Commonwealth cuts funding even further, the states will have no option but to charge patient fees, just as the government wanted GPs to do. It is another backdoor attack on Medicare.

The minister's rejection of this proposal is not convincing. The leaked report arises from the work of a government initiated and selected task force that would be acting on government instructions. Perhaps the minister could tell us just what those instructions are. What is clear from this latest link is that this coalition government cannot be trusted with the future of Medicare.

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