Labor MPs have been campaigning heavily against the deeply unpopular Medicare co-payment. Source: ThinkStock
THE Federal Government is getting ready to junk its controversial $7 Medicare co-payment, acknowledging it has no chance of getting it through a hostile Senate.
With just five sitting days remaining before Parliament rises for the year, no legislation to enable the new fee has been introduced.
Equally contentious higher-education reforms are also likely to be jettisoned.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott told his Coalition colleagues he wanted to deal with “one or two barnacles’’ by the end of the year.
The higher education reforms, which would reduce government funding of degrees, raise interest rates on student loans and allow universities to charge more for courses, would have saved $5 billion over four years.
While the Abbott Government’s negotiations with the Senate are limping on, a deal seems increasingly unlikely.
One Coalition MP told the Herald Sun that the Opposition’s efforts at branding the reforms as likely to result in “$100,000 degrees’’ had resonated surprisingly well with the public and was causing the Federal Government significant electoral concern.
The future of the $7 GP payments looks clearer: the Abbott Government is getting set to dump it, possibly by the end of next week.
The decision would strip another $3.5 billion of savings out of the federal Budget, and raises questions about how the Government would finance the $20 billion medical research fund it proposed in its May 13 Budget.
The $7 co-payment was to apply to all appointments and would have been capped at $70 a year for children and concession card holders.
It would have involved a $5 reduction in the Medicare rebate, and an extra $2 fee to go to the medical research fund.
While the fee was relatively modest, and similar to the co-payment for buying medicines, it proved hugely unpopular.
The Government has been unable to negotiate a deal with the Senate, with the Australian Medical Association or with any of the state governments on how it would apply.
Labor MPs have been campaigning heavily against the co-payment.
The Government is keen to end the six-month stalemate before the end of the year and head into 2015 without carrying the political baggage of some of its more controversial Budget measures.
Originally published as Government backflips on $7 GP fee