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

I'm very pleased to provide information for the member opposite. Medicare investment in new items is going up by $711 million in this budget. What that means is that we are seeing an increase. There should be no case for any increase for any patients anywhere in Australia in terms of their out-of-pocket costs. What we've actually seen in terms of out-of-pockets is an increase of 6.7 per cent in the bulk-billing rate, which means we've gone from 82 per cent of patients paying nothing to visit the GP under Labor to 88.7 per cent under us—

Mr Conroy interjecting—

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