The government’s Medicare rebate cuts for short consultations with doctors look set to be disallowed by the Senate, as Labor pledges to vote down the changes.
Opposition leader Bill Shorten on Wednesday vowed to support the disallowance motion.
“Our position is unequivocal, it’s in black and white. We will oppose Tony Abbott absolutely changing the rebate system for our GPs,” Shorten said.
“We will say to Tony Abbott, you are not going to damage the Medicare system.”
From Monday, general practitioners who conduct a consultation that lasts less than 10 minutes will receive a rebate cut of $20. Doctors say that cost will have to be passed on to patients.
The government did not need to legislate for the changes, but the Senate can pass a disallowance motion to stop it.
The Greens will bring forward a disallowance motion when parliament sits again in February, which has the support of a number of key crossbenchers.
Along with Labor and the Greens, the motion needs four more votes to pass. It has the support of independents Jacqui Lambie and Nick Xenophon and Motoring Enthusiasts senator Ricky Muir.
Lambie said: “When the first opportunity arises at the next sitting of the Senate, I will support a disallowance vote, which abolishes Mr Abbott’s new $20 Medicare fee.”
Advisers for Palmer United senator Glenn Lazarus have told Fairfax that “he is dead set against it, absolutely against it”.
Despite the numbers, the government is confident the policy will continue.
“Sussan Ley, the new health minister, will talk to the Senate crossbenchers, seek their support,” the assistant treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, told the ABC on Wednesday morning.
“We’ve shown an ability to negotiate within the Senate and we’ll do that again hopefully on this policy.”
Tony Abbott accused doctors’ groups of flip-flopping on the issue of short patient consultations.
Abbott said the Australian Medical Association (AMA) had been inconsistent in its offensive against the policy. “Just a few months ago the AMA was saying they didn’t want to see six-minute medicine,” the prime minister said.
“They wanted to see doctors spending more time with their patients and that’s what these changes are designed to produce. Exactly how much patients are charged is always a question for the doctors, but these government changes are designed to ensure that doctors spend a reasonable amount of time with their patients,” he said.
The AMA’s vice-president, Stephen Parnis, said the changes would “seriously undermine” quality of care for patients.
He said it was possible to provide quality care in less than six minutes, depending on the ailment and patient history, but that patient care was not the reason for bringing in the rebate cut. “This is about budget savings,” Parnis said.
As a 22-year veteran of emergency medicine, Parnis said he was “seriously concerned” about patients putting off seeing a doctor and being forced into the public hospital system when their condition deteriorates. “That’s one of our major concerns about this,” he warned.
Abbott rejected claims that changes would increase pressure on public hospitals.
“Anyone who has been to an emergency department knows that they’ve a system called triaging, and if you don’t have a serious complaint, you wait. Sometimes for quite a long time,” he said.