This has been released in the last hour.
Media Release
Hon. Peter Dutton MP - Minister For Health And Sport.
14 December 2014
Labor scaremongering on Medicare
The Labor Party must immediately stop scaremongering in regards the Government's sensible plan to strengthen Medicare.
Medicare was designed to provide quality healthcare to all Australians, yet its cost has ballooned by more than double over the past decade, from $8 billion in 2004 to $20 billion today. Without change, in ten years' time, it will cost the taxpayer $34 billion.
Without action, Medicare is at risk of collapsing under its own weight, undermining its ability to go on providing quality healthcare to those most in need.
Importantly, we've retained bulk billing and put in place a number of strong protections for vulnerable patients. Pensioners, veterans, aged care residents and children under the age of 16 will be exempt from the optional copayment. We estimate that these carve outs represent around eight million people.
Additionally bulk billing incentives for GPs who provide services to concession card holders and children under 16 will remain.
Many doctors already charge a copayment and what doctors charge their patients is ultimately a matter for doctors and not government. However we unapologetically believe that bulk billing should be for those who truly need it and not for wealthy Australians.
The plan I unveiled with the Prime Minister just over a week ago has drawn praise from a wide cross section of the community and has responded to feedback from doctors, MPs, Senate crossbenchers and most importantly, our constituents.
There is currently a great deal of scaremongering by various interest groups around our optional copayment plan.
Bill Shorten should tell Australians whether he would be prepared to pay $5 to see the doctor.
Media contact: Kay McNiece, Acting Media Adviser, 0412 132 585
I will leave it to you to decide just what you think of what is said here.
David.
3 comments:
"However we unapologetically believe that bulk billing should be for those who truly need it and not for wealthy Australians."
Dutton is unapologetically announcing the end of universal access to healthcare.
I have to say that is how I see it!
David
re: "Medicare was designed to provide quality healthcare to all Australians, yet its cost has ballooned by more than double over the past decade, from $8 billion in 2004 to $20 billion today."
Could someone, anyone, explain the logic behind this? I don't understand the use of the word "yet".
Maybe he wants to revert back to the status quo as it was before. A tautology you might excuse in a rugby commentator like Rex Mossop, but not a minister of the crown. OK, he only said revert back, but that's bad enough.
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