Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Medicare) Share this | Hansard source

There is no better example of this government's unfair priorities than their defence of big business tax cuts and big insurer profits at the same time as they're making health care more expensive and less accessible for every Australian. Everywhere you turn, this government is making it harder for Australians to get the healthcare that they need: when they visit a GP, when they need to see a specialist, when they pay for private health insurance or when they need to visit an emergency department of a public hospital. In the choice between protecting the profits of big business and protecting the health of Australians, this government always puts Australians last.

And they cannot be trusted when it comes to Medicare. Who could forget the Prime Minister, the day before the last election, promising that no Australian would pay more to see a GP due to their Medicare freeze? I can't say in this place the word that I would like to say about that, but, suffice it to say, it was a gross untruth. In every state and territory, out-of-pocket costs to visit a GP have gone up and up since the election. Since the Liberals were elected in 2013, they have managed to implement their GP tax by stealth. In my home state of Victoria, patients are now paying $7.70 more out of their own pockets to see a GP than in December 2013.

The worst part is that this Prime Minister has yet to lift a single part of his Medicare freeze. The rebates for GPs, for specialists and for allied health services all remain frozen. As of today, every single part of this government's freeze on patient rebates remains—every single part of it—and we know that the freeze won't be fully lifted until 2020. After the election, the Prime Minister pretended to have listened to the people, pretended that he'd learnt his lesson. But Australians will go to the next election with parts of this government's Medicare freeze, which they rejected in 2016, still in place—proof that this government has not learnt a single thing.

Mr Hunt interjecting—

I hear Mr Medi-no-care at the table here. Mr Medi-no-care likes to pretend that he's actually got something to say about policy. He's all politics and no substance, this Minister for Health over here, trying to pretend that he's actually done something about it.

The government has cut $2.2 billion out of Medicare. That is what this government has done. That is on top of the savings and the cuts they had already made. This $2.2 billion cut from Medicare comes out of the pockets of patients every time one of them goes to the GP, every time they visit a specialist and every time they receive Medicare allied health services. This makes health care more expensive and less accessible for all Australians. It creates additional barriers for those who rely on our healthcare system the most and it stretches our hardworking GPs to do more and more with less and less. This is this government's legacy when it comes to health care.

Of course, for many families, the big part of healthcare affordability is the impact of private health insurance. But when we have a government that cares more about protecting the profits of insurers than they do about protecting consumers then family budgets will always lose. Premiums have increased by 27 per cent since the Liberals were elected in 2013, including the rise we're about to see in April. These increases have added an average $1,000 to the annual premium health bill of Australian families and older Australians. What does the health minister do? He wants us to congratulate him for that rise! He tries to get stories up in the local newspapers about what a great job he's done increasing private health insurance premiums yet again.

We know that so many Australians are questioning the value of their private health insurance. That's why, in 2017, private hospital coverage dropped to the lowest level since 2011. At the same time as ordinary families are struggling to make ends meet, the private health insurance industry is raking in $1.8 billion in pre-tax profits. That's what the industry is getting. But, while this government won't stand up to their private health insurance mates, while they continue to put profits before patients, the status quo will not change. As an example, the government gave the insurers more than $1 billion in savings, and they have still hit the Australian public with an increase that is twice CPI—and you think that is good enough.

Labor knows that the status quo is not acceptable. Something must be done to shift the balance back to consumers. That's why we're acting to make private health insurance fairer and more affordable. The minister says, 'We've really got them with us.' We don't want the private health insurers with us on this. We're actually on the side of the consumers. You're making it clear. You're backing the insurers; we're backing the Australian people every single day. That's why we're acting to make private health insurance fairer.

We will deliver cost-of-living relief to 13 million Australians through capping private health insurance premiums to two per cent a year for the first two years after we're elected and task the Productivity Commission with the biggest review of the industry in 20 years. Labor will deliver, to 1.7 million Australian families, an average saving of $340 to the family budget.

For years and years, Australians have seen their private health insurance premiums soar and the value of their private health insurance plummet. Private health insurance is no good if you can't use it when you need it most. However, under this government, we have seen people hit with increased out-of-pocket costs and gap payments. Ten years ago only 8.6 per cent of health insurance policies contained exclusions; today it's 40 per cent. Australians are paying a lot more for their health insurance policies and getting a lot less.

The best examples of the need for action on this come from our constituents, who we know are battling with pressures around the family budget and seeing firsthand the impact of this crisis. Alison, a mum from Mackay, wrote to me saying she'd cancelled her private health insurance, a family policy with Medibank Private, because she no longer sees the value in having private health insurance. She says, 'It's time the Australian government got together with insurance providers to review the whole private health insurance industry and come up with a system that provides more value to Australians.'

We are not apologising at all for our policies, because we have put consumers at the heart of our policies. You have put the private health insurance profits at the heart of yours. Of course, this government's approach of putting health and patients last wouldn't be complete without their appalling treatment of our public hospitals. Last week, we saw the government's secret plan to lock in seven years of public hospital cuts. It is an insult to Australian patients and more proof that this government cares more about defending a big-business tax cut than properly funding this nation's health system.

Elective surgery waiting times under this Prime Minister are the worst since records have been kept. Patients presenting to emergency departments requiring urgent medical attention are being left for longer, with only 66 per cent of urgent emergency department patients in 2016-17 seen within the recommended 30 minutes—another consecutive decline under this government. More than 50 per cent of public hospital doctors are working unsafe hours that put them at significant risk of fatigue, including 75 per cent of intensive care specialists, with the AMA saying the strain and the pressure on our public hospitals is having a detrimental impact on the health of their doctors.

The government is so out of touch that it claims that, by keeping the status quo when it comes to hospital funding and doing the minimal that they have to do in order to skate their way through what is a very, very significant policy area—the funding of our public hospitals—is a very generous offer. Whether it is cutting Medicare, cutting funding to public hospitals or failing to stand up to the big-profit health insurers, wherever you turn, this government cannot be trusted on health. They cannot be trusted.

Out-of-pocket costs to see a GP have never been higher. The Prime Minister has not dropped a single part of their freeze. The fact is that this government does not think that investing in the health of Australians is more important than investing in big business and giving them a tax handout. This government and this minister care nothing about Medicare. (Time expired)

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