New Australian Medical Association President Brian Owler has slammed the Abbott government’s planned changes to healthcare.
The Sydney neurosurgeon said the proposed $7 co-payment would be ‘prohibitively expensive’ for people from lower socio-economic backgrounds not covered by concessions, as well as the elderly, Indigenous Australians, and sufferers of chronic disease.
It’s not up to GPs to be the determinants of peoples’ incomes, and whether they can afford to pay; we’re not the agents of the social welfare policy of the Abbott government.
Dr Brian Owler, AMA president
‘The problem we have with the current proposal is that it cuts the Medicare rebate by $5, and it means that there are patients who can’t afford to pay a co-payment,’ he told RN Breakfast.
Dr Owler was elected to head the AMA at its national conference on Sunday.
He said that his first priority would be to speak with the Abbott government about the health impacts of the federal Budget.
While Treasurer Joe Hockey has downplayed the impact of the co-payment will have, Dr Owler said that the costs to patients could ‘add up quickly’.
‘Say a young woman with a breast lump came to a GP, then went and had an ultrasound, a mammogram, went back to the GP, then was referred for a fine needle and core biopsy under image guidance. That’s a total of nine co-payments because each item number for the diagnostic imaging attracts a co-payment, as does the service for pathology.’
Dr Owler also said assurances from the government that $5 of each $7 co-payment will stay with the doctor did not ease his concerns.
‘Peoples’ practices … vary quite widely in the sorts of locations and the types of patients that they care for, so if you’re doing primarily Indigenous healthcare, then you know there are not very many patients that are actually going to afford the $7 co-payment,’ he said.
‘It’s not up to GPs to be the determinants of peoples’ incomes, and whether they can afford to pay; we’re not the agents of the social welfare policy of the Abbott government.’
According to Dr Owler, Australia has no problem with health service overuse.
‘There’s actually no evidence to say that GP consultations are rapidly increasing, in fact they’ve actually been fairly static,’ he said.
‘There are isolated cases of over-servicing, but the vast majority of people that go to their GP do so because they need their GP’s help.’
‘The GP is part of the solution to the problem; they are keeping people out of our public hospitals, managing their chronic diseases in the community and at the end of the day, I think they save the health budget rather than add to its costs.’
Dr Owler also said he was concerned about the impact of the co-payment on preventative health measures such as vaccinations.
‘It goes against the grain of what we’ve been trying to do over the past 10 years.’