Taxpayers expected to pay $7.50 to see a doctor under Federal Budget 2014

AUSTRALIANS are almost certain to pay a fee for the doctor, as the Prime Minister said “free services to patients are certainly not free to taxpayers.”

Taxpayers are likely to pay a fee to see the doctor following next week’s budget.

TONY Abbott could not have been clearer about the likelihood Australians will have to make a co-payment when visiting the doctor.

“Free services to patients are certainly not free to taxpayers,” the prime minister said in a pre-budget speech.

That's being taken to mean the much flagged co-payment — possibly as much as $7.50 — is almost a certainty.

But it could have been much worse.

The government's commission of audit recommended general patients pay $15 after 15 “free” visits. Concession card holders such as pensioners should pay $5.

The co-payment fits neatly into Treasurer Joe Hockey's pledge to end the age of entitlement and with his “early warning bell” about the sustainability of Medicare.

The cost of universal healthcare has spiralled in the last decade.

The cost of the taxpayer-funded universal health scheme has spiralled in the past 10 years, from $8 billion in 2002-03 to $19 billion.

As the population ages that spending is projected to increase to $80 billion.

Australians will have to wait until budget day to see if the government adopts any of the audit's other recommendations including an increase in co-payments for taxpayer-funded medicines, and a more than doubling of the Medicare surcharge paid by high-income earners.

Medicare Locals could be in the government's sights, despite a promise not to scrap the bodies that coordinate local health services.

The coalition has long opposed the Labor initiative as unnecessary bureaucracy, and after the federal election launched a review of the $1.8 billion scheme.

Labor's GP Super Clinics also face the axe, after years of criticism from the coalition.

Originally published as Taxpayers expected to pay $7.50 to see a doctor under Federal Budget 2014