Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As I raised in this chamber on 12 May this year, the eagle needs to be sent home. Sigma Pharmaceuticals and nib Health Funds, in a recently announced collaboration, have formed this joint venture under the term, ironically, Honeysuckle Health, with the intention, obviously, of working towards some minimal cost savings, which ultimately can, in the end—and we know from US experience—harm patient care. These contracting groups that we have seen from the US are basically a bundling value-based contract and they basically put the hands of insurers on the clinical decisions between the doctor and the patient. And it's a bad precedent. I'm deeply concerned, because I've seen what's happened in the US. If there's one thing to say about the US health system, it is that they have struggled to rein in costs. Eventually these network care arrangements produce these silos of non-overlapping care, where patients are locked into narrow and separate providers, and increasingly costs and restrictions and multiple tiers lead to limits in choice.

I want to give you some examples. There is an additional $10,000 to transport a patient to a hospital that's not in the network, and an additional $36,000 of healthcare costs because you're transporting, by helicopter, someone to a hospital that's not in the network. There is an insurance administrator who basically scurries around hospital corridors looking for patients to discharge, against medical advice, because the beds aren't there and the company bed count has been exceeded.

There are gynaecologists who claim that a patient needs a hysterectomy but they have to wait until the haemoglobin level falls to a particular point before the insurance company allows them to proceed. There is, remarkably, the need for insurance pre-approval before an operation can be performed, and we require permission again from an admissions clerk. The breast cancer procedure is performed by a general surgeon rather than a breast surgeon, and the reconstruction is done by a surgeon who is not qualified in either plastic or breast surgery.

It's ironic they use the term Honeysuckle Health, because we here in Australia all know that honeysuckles are an invasive and pestilent species, recognised as such in North America and across Europe, and the way to treat an invasive pest of this kind is generous doses of glyphosate. We're asking this chamber and this nation to recognise that we shouldn't need to resort to such extreme measures, because a simple piece of legislation that I know would have support from the other side of the chamber would simply mandate that we keep this important competition between providers and hospitals in place. The purchaser-provider split is a very important part of high-quality and contested work. The last thing we want to see is private health insurers purchasing into hospitals and promising early on no-cost and low-cost services for very simple cases, because ultimately it is the complex cases that can blow out and cause extreme out-of-pocket pressures on patients. Say no to Honeysuckle Health and no to deals with our Australian healthcare providers. Let's sendtheeaglehome.com.au.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In accordance with the resolution agreed to on 17 June 2021, the time for members' constituency statements has concluded.