Mark Butler (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

I thank my friend and electoral neighbour the member for Boothby for her question. She had a long career in health care before coming to this place and she campaigned very hard in Adelaide on a promise to her community to strengthen Medicare. As a member of this government she is delivering on that promise in spades, through our three-point plan to strengthen Medicare, to triple the bulk-billing incentive, to roll out a network of Medicare urgent care clinics and bulk-billed clinics—including one in her electorate, in Boothby—and to make medicines cheaper.

The week before last the member for Boothby joined me at the Castle Medical Centre in Edwardstown, in her electorate, to announce almost $6 billion of new investments in Medicare that took effect on 1 November, including the tripling of the bulk-billing incentive—the largest investment in bulk-billing in the 40-year history of Medicare. Dr Ng told us that 80 per cent of the patients at her centre were either kids, pensioners or concession card holders covered by these new incentives. From 1 November, a bulk-billed standard consult at that centre goes up a whopping 34 per cent for all those patients.

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