Pollies debate the future of healthcare as election race heats up

As the countdown to May 3's federal election ticks over, the future of Australian healthcare continues to take centre stage on the campaign trail.

This week, Minister for Health and Aged Care Mark Butler and opposition spokeswoman Anne Ruston debated the state of the nation's health at Wednesday's National Press Club.

Medicare funding forms a core part of Labor’s pitch for a second term in government and Anthony Albanese's government has pledged to invest $8.5bn in the program to deliver an estimated 18 million additional GP visits each year, alongside a lift in nursing scholarships and training for doctors.

The core of the investment will expand bulk billing incentives for all Australians and create new incentive payments for practices that bulk bill all of their patients.

The Coalition has pledged to allocate an additional $9bn into Medicare.

Senator Ruston took the opportunity to defend the Coalition’s approach to Medicare and promised an elected Dutton government would not implement any cuts to the universal healthcare scheme.

“We will keep open all urgent care clinics,” she said.

“We rule out any costs to hospital funding and the Coalition will never move to a US-style health care system.

“What the Coalition will be doing, though, is we’ll increase investment into Medicare as we always have and always will.

“We’ll prioritise workforce because we understand no policy can be achieved without the workforce to deliver it.”

Minister Butler however, reminded the audience of Peter Dutton's time as health minister in the run-up to the 2014 budget, warning that the Opposition Leader would cut Medicare if he won the May 3 election.

“Peter Dutton outlined his plan for a so-called sustainable Medicare, $50bn ripped out of public hospitals, a tax on every visit to the GP for every man, woman, pensioner and child,” Mr Butler said.

“And when Labor blocked that vandalism in the Senate, Peter Dutton responded by freezing the Medicare rebates for six long years, ripping billions of dollars out of general practice.

“Those nine years of nasty cuts and calculated neglect have precipitated the crisis that confronts us today.

“Only months before that speech to the Press Club, of course, Peter Dutton had looked Australians in the eye and promised that there would be no cuts to health.”

In the question and answer session that followed, the debate shifted to whether Mr Dutton’s proposal to cut 41,000 public servants would impact the Health Department.

Senator Ruston said “no frontline services will be even considered as part of this.”

“We have a crisis in workforce,” she said.

“We want to see an efficient investment in frontline services, so we’ve got the doctors trained, we’ve got the nurses, we’ve got the allied health workers, the carers, people working in the NDIS and disability.

“We need to make sure that we are focused on delivering services to Australians – not public servants sitting behind desks in Canberra, but actually making sure that we are delivering our healthcare system in Australia for the benefit of everyday Australians that need that care and support, which right now, quite frankly, they’re not getting.”

Minister Butler responded by pointing out that public servant cutbacks would undoubtedly hit the delivery of healthcare.

“The Coalition has said that national security and frontline services are exempt from the 41,000 job reductions or job cuts,” he said.

“That leaves, on the analysis of the Public Service Commission, a little over 60,000 jobs in the frame for 41,000 jobs going.

“That includes all of the Department of Health. This is going to be devastating to our capacity to implement health programs.”

Mr Butler then claimed the Coalition would cut the planned Australian Centre for Disease Control, a new agency that would coordinate the country’s pandemic responses in the wake of Covid, before reiterating that the Albanese government’s investment in Medicare would lift bulk billing rates to 90 per cent of all Australians.

“We’ve been very clear about this, there will be Australians who will continue to be charged a gap fee,” he said.

“But we think that we can get to 90 per cent for all Australians under these arrangements.”

---

⮚ For more election coverage click here.