Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

nator RUSTON (—) (): Thank you. I accept that you've taken it on notice, but I think what I'm trying to get to is the very nature of the fact that we have before us this bill that actually provides a whole series of enabling capabilities for the government to do things, not the least of which is the removal from the Prostheses List of in excess of 400 items that now have to be dealt with by an alternative funding model. Obviously, this is of significant concern more broadly because it could potentially have very significant impacts on the delivery of services. I accept that you're not the minister—you're a representing minister—and I appreciate you want to take these on notice, but, given that this bill is going to come back a little bit later this afternoon or maybe tomorrow, I'd really appreciate being able to understand whether you've actually assessed the impacts of how you might proceed in dealing with the funding or the payment of these particular items as it impacts on actual procedures.

As an example, I asked in my speech in the second reading debate: can you guarantee that bariatric procedures, which use a significant number of the items that will be transferred off the Prostheses List into this new general use area, will remain cost-effective for delivery by private hospitals through this insurance mechanism following the changes? The thing that I think everybody is wanting to find out about what's going on here is whether the procedures that are currently being undertaken are not going to be detrimentally impacted by the changes. That's all we're seeking to understand, so it's concerning that we're standing here today without having that information.

We're about to get gonged because we're going to the next stage of procedure in this place, so I look forward to perhaps being a bit more detailed when we come back.