Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Government Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

What the Medicare levy surcharge will do is take some pressure off working families who were already struggling to pay for the rising cost of health care under the previous Liberal government. It is estimated that 11 per cent of privately-insured patients who are treated at a public hospital opt to be treated as public patients. If the previous government really cared about making sure all Australians had access to quality health care, they would have done this long ago. The Department of Health and Ageing will communicate the changes to the private health insurance industry and consumers. Looking at comments that were made prior to the election, it was reported in the Daily Telegraph on 10 January that:

Labor health spokeswoman Nicola Roxon yesterday attacked the Government for not indexing the surcharge but would not commit a Labor government to indexation. “We now see that because the Government has failed to index the levy that people who are earning average incomes are now being hit with an extra charge,” Ms Roxon said.

She went on to say:

“We think this is an outrage and the Government should be looking at ways it can appropriately adjust that threshold,” she said.

On 5 November 2007, it was reported that Ms Roxon described the failure to index the levy—(Time expired)