Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Hansard source

I do support the Prime Minister. Let me be absolutely clear. I support what we have done with record funding for health, record bulk-billing, record funding for hospitals and record funding for mental health. Above all else, the fact is that on Labor's watch they deliberately deferred new medicines. They did it in their own budget statement. They did it for medicines right across the board, including for schizophrenia, IVF, endometriosis, deep vein thrombosis, severe asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

If you want to understand the difference between these two sides, what you can see is that those opposite cannot manage the economy and, therefore, they cannot guarantee essential services. We can manage the economy, we have created a million jobs and we have been able to guarantee essential services. That is the difference, and it's fundamental. What they would also do is slash the rebate from the private health insurance system, leading to higher out-of-pocket costs and a 16 per cent increase in the cost of private health insurance. They are healthcare vandals through and through. What we have done in guaranteeing the PBS is give patients certainty and give patients earlier access to the medicines they deserve.

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