Health Minister Peter Dutton in Question Time last Thursday. Photo: Andrew Meares
Health Minister Peter Dutton says it is a positive thing that most Australians will be forced to fork out $5 more to see a doctor under new plans to slash rebates that GPs receive.
Despite spruiking its revised plan as a $5 “discretionary fee” that doctors may opt to absorb themselves, Mr Dutton has admitted that the majority of Australians who do not hold concession cards will end up copping the extra cost.
The government’s new plan came as it dumped its original proposal for a $7 GP co-payment fee in the face of widespread opposition and a hostile Senate.
In an interview on the ABC’s 7.30 on Tuesday, Leigh Sales asked Mr Dutton multiple times whether patients who are not bulk-billed needed to be reminded that they would receive $5 less in their Medicare reimbursements under the new plan.
“If they are a general patient and without a concession card, we reduce the rebate by $5,” he said.
“The doctor may charge the extra $5 or the doctor may decide not to. So for those people who do get charged the $5, you are right, and that’s about trying to provide some balance in the system to get sustainability and to keep Medicare strong.”
When asked about the impost of the $5 cost that non-concession patients will face, Mr Dutton maintained that the fee if charged would be a step in the right direction.
“If [doctors] choose to [impose the fee] that’s something that we would encourage because we do believe it is senseless to pretend that you can say to every Australian coming through the door of your doctor that it’s going to be for free,” he said.
Under the new system, which would come into effect from July 1, doctors can either absorb the extra $5 cost per patient within bulk-billing, or charge a $5 “discretionary” fee. Children under 16, pensioners, veterans and people in aged care and nursing homes would be exempt.
Mr Dutton said Treasurer Joe Hockey was in favour of the changes, despite him recently stating the $7 fee remained government policy.
Abandoning the $7 fee has been the third major policy backdown this week as the federal government lags in opinion polls.
But Mr Dutton denied his was a government that could not get its agenda through.
“I think what we are looking like … is a government that listens to the people that elected us, and we are listening to the back bench and the cross-bench senators and we want to get the budget back into a state of repair.”