Medicare splurge signals big-spending election race

Anthony Albanese’s oversimplification – “I want every Australian to know they only need their Medicare card, not their credit card, to receive the healthcare they need” – overlooks a key point. Healthcare is never free; somebody has to pay. In the case of the Prime Minister’s $8.5bn cash splash across four years, that somebody will be taxpayers. It could also be home loan and small-business borrowers through elevated interest rates if the spending results in higher inflation for longer.

Far from being brave enough to oppose the spending binge, Peter Dutton is seeking to defend his narrow lead in the polls and offset Mr Albanese’s negative campaigning that the Coalition would cut bulk billing “off at the knees”. That’s why the Coalition is backing the outlay, adding $500m, already announced, for mental health support to top Labor’s promise with a $9bn pledge. The Opposition Leader’s pitch is no less populist than Mr Albanese’s complaining it has “never been harder and more expensive to see a doctor”. Mr Dutton and opposition health spokeswoman Anne Ruston urged Labor to spend more on Medicare but did not outline any measures to offset the pressure on the budget.

Neither did Mr Albanese nor Health Minister Mark Butler. Under Labor’s plan, 90 per cent of visits to GPs would be bulk-billed by 2030. Mr Butler said the policy would result in an additional 20 million GP visits. The cost, which would reach $2.4bn a year by 2028-29, would be dealt with in “the usual way”, he said, and “all of that will become clear at the next budget update”.

It was an irresponsible performance by both sides of politics. As economist Chris Richardson said, both sides “are making permanent promises on the back of temporary budget good luck. This is a very old and very dumb mistake”. Ordinary Australians would be the losers long-term. The initiatives follow an estimate by the Productivity Commission that more than one in 12 patients across the nation had delayed seeing a doctor because they could not afford it.

That is problematic and reflects falling living standards being experienced by too many Australians amid inflation, high interest rates and soaring power prices. Across the medium term, that trend needs to be tackled through serious reform policies that build prosperity through productivity gains, reducing inflation, more affordable power and a tax system that encourages incentive. Those issues, while more complex than giveaways, also need serious debate during the election campaign.

The Medicare promises follow last week’s $2bn gamble by Labor to decarbonise the Whyalla steelworks in South Australia. Even before the federal election is called, the public funding speedometer is running in overdrive. And that is before either major party, in the nation’s deteriorating strategic situation, addresses the compelling need to lift defence spending from about 2 per cent of GDP to 3 per cent.

Mr Albanese’s sugar hit, announced at a campaign rally in Launceston, may be a prescription for his government’s political ills. But as health editor Natasha Robinson writes, fully bulk-billing practices have always been associated with six-minute medicine. The elephant in the waiting room, she argues, is the tide of chronic disease afflicting the country. “Diabetes and chronic mental health conditions that cost our health system dearly need complex health care and prevention,” Robinson writes. “GP consultations lasting a few minutes won’t fix this imperative … and draw resources away from the real problem at the heart of Australians’ health.”