The Government made 'changes' to Medicare.
Instead of making Doctors charge $5 each time you have to see them they will do it by the back door. They will reduce payments to Doctors by $5 thus essentially making doctors charge patients by the same $5.
There are a few problems here.
1) what is the use of introducing a price to these services if it is NOT to reduce the 'debt and deficit disaster'?
2) The rise in medicare costs have come from Hospitals not doctors at all.
3) people usually only go to the doctor when they are sick. Queues which costs people time has an effect on consumers!
4) The government has said visits to the GP has to be 10 minutes. What happens if you have to go to a GP to get a referral. At my age I see a skin specialist every 6 months. How is getting a referral going to last 10 minutes?
5) when GPs are unable to bulk bill and thus most patients have to pay $5 whom does the government think the GPs are going to say is responsible?
6) Everybody will be watching the Senate to see if they reject this. What happens if they do?
All in all not a lot of thinking has gone into this.
Peter Martin explains the logic. and more
Jim Gillespie tells us it is deja vu all over again.
Here is the Grattan Institute and Jeff Richardson
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