Julian Leeser (Berowra, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Australians) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This package of bills represents the first tranche of legislative changes required to implement the coalition's 2021-22 budget measure, modernising and improving the private health insurance Prostheses List. It represents our commitment to modernising and improving the Prostheses List for the benefit of patients and Australia's world-class healthcare system. The package includes (1) the Private Health Insurance Legislation Amendment (Medical Device and Human Tissue Product List and Cost Recovery Bill 2022, (2) the Private Health Insurance (National Joint Replacement Register Levy) Amendment (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2022 and (3) the Private Health Insurance (Prostheses Application and Listing Fees) Amendment (Cost Recovery) Bill 2022.

The Private Health Insurance Legislation Amendment (Medical Device and Human Tissue Product List and Cost Recovery Bill amends the Private Health Insurance Act 2007 to better define the products that may be eligible for inclusion on the Prostheses List. The bill renames the current Private Health Insurance (Prostheses) Rules (No. 3) 2022 to the Private Health Insurance (Medical Devices and Human Tissues Products) Rules to better reflect its purpose and the types of products that are eligible for inclusion. The bill also updates the relevant cost recovery arrangements, including providing statutory authority for the Minister for Health and Aged Care to allow for fee-for-service cost recovery consistent with the Australian Government Charging Framework.

The Private Health Insurance (National Joint Replacement Register Levy) Amendment (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2022 amends the Private Health Insurance (National Joint Replacement Register Levy) Act 2009 to reflect the renamed medical devices and human tissue products rule.

The Private Health Insurance (Prostheses Application and Listing Fees) Amendment (Cost Recovery) Bill 2022 amends the Private Health Insurance (Prostheses Application and Listing Fees) Act 2009 to rename the act and update the cost recovery arrangements. This bill provides for the imposition of a cost recovery levy on each kind of medical device and human tissue product on the prescribed list. The amount of the levy will be set by the regulations.

On the coalition's budget measures, established in 1985, the Prostheses List sets the minimum price insurers must pay hospitals for a surgically implanted prosthesis, such as a hip replacement or pacemaker, received by a private patient in a privately insured episode of hospital treatment. Since 1985, the Prostheses List has grown in both size and complexity. Under the former coalition government, in 2019-20, more than 3.1 million prostheses on the list were supplied at a cost to private health insurers of approximately $2.1 billion.

The coalition supports the three bills included in this package, which progress our 2021-22 budget measure to modernise and improve the Prostheses List. As part of this measure, we budgeted $22 million over four years to reduce the cost of medical devices used in the private health sector and streamline access to new medical devices, which, in turn, would improve the affordability and value of private health insurance for Australians.

We had a strong plan to lower the price of medical devices, ensuring savings flowed to consumers and improved access to new treatments and medical devices. The coalition was committed to continuing to support value, choice and high-quality services for patients and clinicians in the private healthcare sector. We were committed to continuing to make private health insurance simpler and more affordable and delivering record low premium charges for consumers. This demonstrates the coalition's strong record when it comes to strengthening private health insurance.

When we left government, private health insurance membership was at record levels, with more than 14 million Australians now covered. Our reforms delivered the 2022 premium charge, which was the lowest in more than 21 years, and the eighth successive decline in premium charges since Labor's last year in government in 2013. Our government increased investment in the patient rebate for private health insurance from $5.4 billion in 2012-13 to $6.9 billion in 2022-23. We implemented new, easy-to-understand gold, silver and bronze basic classifications for private health insurance; standard clinical definitions; better access to mental health; better care in rural and regional Australia; lower prices for medical devices; and more flexibility for families and people with disabilities to receive their care.

We know that the Labor government doesn't like private health insurance. But the coalition government recognised that Australia's health sector is strongest with both public and private systems working together, hand in hand, to ensure access to health care for all Australians. However, despite our support for the reform package, there are concerns with the lack of detail provided by the Albanese Labor government on certain key elements of these bills. Once again, the Labor government is refusing to be transparent with the important substantive details sitting beneath legislation that they've put forward to this parliament.

There are a significant number of issues that may be subject to regulation under these bills that are yet to be resolved, including eligibility criteria, listing pathways, specifications for the calculations of cost recovery, regrouping and payments for the removal of items. The bills provide little detail about the extent or specificity of the powers to be implemented through the reforms, relegating these details to subordinate legislative instruments and mechanisms that have not been seen by stakeholders or the opposition.

This government was elected on a platform of increasing transparency, yet it seems to be committed to avoiding transparency at every stage it gets to, especially by delegating the substantive details of its measures to unsighted subordinate legislation. The Albanese Labor government must stop focusing only on headline announcements and start considering the important details that are necessary for their implementation. They continue to show us that they are all talk and no delivery.

We are supportive of this bill, but we're putting the government on notice that they cannot continue to expect us to pass bills in this place without seeing any of the substantive details. Modernising and improving the Prostheses List is an important reform process, and the patients who would benefit from the reforms deserve to have the details properly considered.

Debate adjourned.

Leave granted for second reading debate to resume at a later hour this day.