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

For two years the Abbott government has engaged in an unprecedented attack on the ability of Australians to access affordable health care. The freeze on the Medicare Benefits Schedule rebate, which kicked in with a vengeance on 1 July, is simply the fourth version of the GP tax the government is using to drive down bulk billing and to drive up the cost of seeing a doctor.

Already there are reports from across the country of new fees of up to $20 and $30 for patients who cannot afford them and who have all previously been bulk billed, including concession card holders and residents in nursing homes. A Tasmanian GP told Australian Medicine that his practices in Ulverstone and Penguin have been forced to introduce a $30 charge for the hundreds of patients who had previously been bulk billed. He said:

We have now reached an inflexion point, triggered by the rebate freeze, where it is increasingly unaffordable.

We have doctors right across the country reporting this. One from Perth recently said:

Unfortunately the freeze on the rebate means that we will either have to increase the gap for our private patients or consider a gap fee for those who bulk bill.

Hard-working GPs across the country are trying to do the best for their patients, but because of the actions of this government, they are now forced into making a choice—going broke, or raising their fees and ending bulk billing. Shame, government, shame!