Andrews, Perrottet push Albanese to fund more free GPs

Premiers Daniel Andrews and Dominic Perrottet will lobby the Albanese government to pay doctors more to help boost the rate of bulk-billing in an overhaul of the Medicare program that could cost the strained federal budget billions.

The Victorian and NSW leaders have declared that fixing general practice should be national cabinet’s top priority when it meets on February 1, at which point the Commonwealth will be armed with a major new report outlining a federal taskforce’s plan to reform the troubled public health subsidy.

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet and Victorian counterpart Daniel Andrews at the federal government’s jobs summit last year.Credit: James Brickwood

Labor promised to use the $750 million Strengthening Medicare Fund announced in the October budget to act on the taskforce’s solutions, but the premiers of Australia’s two most populated states are united across party lines and believe this is not enough to rejuvenate a “broken” primary health network.

“We know what the solutions to Australia’s broken primary care system are: we urgently need to pay GPs more, increase university places to get a pipeline of new doctors across the nation, attract GPs from overseas to Australia faster – and break down barriers between primary care and our hospital system,” Andrews said in a statement to The Age and Sydney Morning Herald.

“Medicare should be fast, free and local. We’ve done enough talking about its issues – now it’s time for the Commonwealth to prioritise taking action, and reform our primary care system.”

Perrotett, who will push for Medicare payments to rise, said: “We have a once in a generation opportunity for the Commonwealth and the states to work together to make our health system better across the entire country.”

Health Minister Mark Butler and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.Credit: James Brickwood

“We need more bulk-billing doctors across NSW to treat patients for free and stop unnecessary emergency department visits clogging up our hospitals. We are seeing so many presentations into our hospitals that could be treated by a GP or in a better way.

“This isn’t about a fight with the Commonwealth Government on money; this is about working together to provide better health services.”

The premiers want the Albanese government to change the Medicare schedule rebates paid to doctors, which have failed to keep up with inflation, and also want more accurate data about the actual number of patients who can use bulk-billing.

Established in July to tackle the looming shortfall in the number of GPs, the Strengthening Medicare Taskforce met for final time before Christmas and a final report will be handed to Health Minister Mark Butler this month.

The Australian Medical Association (AMA) and Royal Australian College of General Practitioners support the premiers’ demands, but both organisations said billions in extra funds would probably be needed.

The pressure from states and medical bodies adds to the growing set of spending demands confronting Labor, which is grappling with a long-term deficit and escalating spending on aged care, the NDIS, defence and interest payments.

The October budget shows the cost of medical benefits will rise from $29.9 billion last financial year to $31.3 billion this financial year, and is expected to outstrip inflation for the next few years.

The intervention by Andrews and Perrottet follows a series of reports by this masthead late last year which examined how billing fraud, waste and errors have heaped extra pressure on the sustainability of the already-strained Medicare system.

AMA president Steve Robson said Australia’s health system could face the same struggles as Britain’s if the nation did not increase its share of spending on healthcare from 10 to 11 per cent of the national economy, which he said was in line with many OECD nations.

“I think the government recognises it is going to take a lot more than the [$750 million],” Robson said.

“Federal Labor had very little health policy going into the election. I think what has happened is it’s dawned on [Butler] what a massive problem he has inherited.

“Over the past few months it looks like the state premiers have had a very careful think about this issue and come to the same conclusion we did a few years ago: primary healthcare is the long-term solution.”

Professor Stephen Duckett says improving the health system will cost more than allowed for in the federal budget.Credit: Jeremy Piper

Pre-eminent healthcare academic Stephen Duckett, a member of the taskforce, said improving primary care would take more than the $250 million budgeted over the next three years.

“It’s going to be ongoing, it’s a really complex issue and there’s not a single solution, there’s many,” he said. “You’ve got to be careful of not putting in money that doesn’t go to improvements to services for consumers.”

The federal government estimates about two-third of patients are treated by bulk-billing doctors, many of whom say government rebates are not high enough to cover their costs.

Royal Australian College of General Practitioners president Dr Nicole Higgins, also a taskforce participant, said $2 billion per annum had effectively been stripped out of Medicare as a result of rebate freezes and insufficient indexation.

This should be reinstated, she said, and funding should be diverted from hospitals to primary health.

“The fact that the premiers have raised the red flag shows that there’s now a recognition that the chronic underfunding has reached crisis point,” she said.

With Rachel Clun

Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis from Jacqueline Maley. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter here.