Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health and Ageing. Will the minister update the House on the government’s plans to reform the private health insurance rebate and make it more sustainable for taxpayers?

Nicola Roxon (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Braddon for his question. He has always taken a very active interest in the health needs of his community in Braddon. I know he is determined like the rest of us on this side of the House to make sure that our expenditure in health is sustainable into the future. That is why we have reintroduced our private health insurance incentive bills. They have just passed through the House today and have now been referred to the Senate.

We are determined to pursue these sensible reforms because we do not think it is appropriate that taxi drivers, secretaries, nurses and others should be funding the private health insurance of politicians, bankers and millionaires. This is not an appropriate position for us long term. What was shown in the Intergenerational report that the Treasurer released at the start of the week was that private health insurance is the fastest growing expenditure item of health in—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Nicola Roxon (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If the members opposite would like to listen to the answer, they would find that in the Intergenerational report it is clear that the private health insurance rebate is growing faster than all other expenditure in health and needs of course to be reined in. What is important to understand is the measures that have been introduced have been designed to ensure that the participation rate is not significantly affected. Our changes are designed to have a minimal impact on participation, with 99.7 per cent of people projected to maintain their hospital cover.

Now that we have the opportunity with this bill going again to the Senate, we will see how serious the opposition, in particular the new finance spokesperson, is about a measure that will save $2 billion over the next four years. I know that the Leader of the Opposition does know that $2 billion is a lot of money. In fact I also know that he knows that health and hospitals cost a lot of money. He told the Australian late last year that one of the problems with hospitals is, ‘There is not enough money.’ I wonder why there is not enough money when, as health minister, the Leader of the Opposition oversaw $1 billion being pulled out of our public hospitals and then has the audacity to say, ‘The problem with hospitals is they do not have enough money.’ Why is that, I ask the Leader of the Opposition? The Leader of the Opposition is very good at identifying problems—hospitals need more money—but he does not have any solutions. His only solution when he was in government was to actually rip money out of our public hospitals. He is very good at being all complaint but no solution.

In contrast our government has been investing in health busily for the last two years block by block, rebuilding the system that was pulled apart by the Leader of the Opposition. Now we have an opportunity to save $2 billion in a very fair and reasonable way over the next four years, nearly $10 billion over the projections for about the next 10-year period and we know it grows exponentially on Treasury advice to $100 billion by the middle of the century. This can easily be effected and it is a policy which we think is fair. It is about making private health insurance sustainable. If the new finance spokesperson meant anything at all when he said he would keep an open mind and look at anything that would deliver a net saving to the budget, the opposition would be getting on board and supporting this measure in the Senate.