Costs on the rise: patients could be hit with a $7 fee per visit to the GP. Photo: Andrew Quilty
It did not rate a mention in the election campaign, but Peter Dutton’s controversial proposal for a $7 fee to visit the doctor dominated his first year as Health Minister.
The coalition’s proposal, , which would apply to pathology and diagnostic imaging services such as blood tests and X-rays as well as GP visits has been almost universally condemned by health and welfare groups, who say it would hit the poor and sick hardest and increase pressure on already stretched public hospitals.
With Labor, the Greens and the Palmer United Party stridently opposed to the fee, it appears unlikely to pass the Senate, but the government remains hopeful the measure could pass with the support of the mercurial Clive Palmer and other crossbenchers.
Uncertainty in the upper house has also placed a cloud over what the government hoped would be its budget good news story – an endowment for medical research, funded by health savings such the Medicare fee, increases to charges for PBS drugs, and indexation freezes which will mean more people will pay the Medicare Levy Surcharge, and fewer will qualify for the private health insurance rebate.