Free medical consultation looks more like a campaign myth

At best, Labor’s promise to provide for “free” but essentially fully taxpayer-funded GP visits is idealistic rather than being responsible and achievable (“Doctors v PM: free for every GP visit a fantasy”, 16/4). There must always be provision for those who cannot afford to see a doctor.

But a free-for-all sounds like a last-minute election stunt. GPs are hardworking professionals already working many hours as it stands. The free-for-all will swamp them and do little to better defray their escalating operating costs. So, it’s better for any future government to focus on areas of real need rather than an expensive and doubtful buying of votes.

But there is one area that does need attention. It is the ever-increasing and high charges of private medical specialists and the unacceptably long waiting times to see a medical specialist in the public hospital system.

A promise by all major political parties to investigate and effectively address these areas would be welcomed by most electors.

Michael Schilling, Millswood, SA

If Anthony Albanese is fair dinkum that the only thing you need to visit a doctor is your Medicare card, more needs to be done in supporting doctors to engage in bulk billing.

Talk to general practitioners and they will tell you that they just cannot afford to run a profitable practice under the current payment scheme.

The only way to increase the rate of bulk billing is to increase the payment to GPs for each consultation. It costs a small fortune to conduct a GP practice when one considers the cost of all of the overheads.

This is obviously something that Labor MPs just do not understand due to the fact that most of them have never, ever worked in private enterprise and, unfortun­ately, many are totally unsympathetic to small business operators due to their leftist ideology.

Peter D. Surkitt, Sandringham, Vic

Your article highlights and simplifies the precarious state of primary care in Australia.

The recently announced $8.5bn increase in funds for bulk billing is welcome but it is wallpaper over the cracks.

Bulk-billed, fee-for-service medicine is not sustainable and has not been for a long time. It is not working in primary care or for non-GP specialist care.

Healthcare is not free, we all pay for it with taxes. We should not, however, be “taxed” every time we need healthcare. Fees at point of service prevent people accessing healthcare and medicines. Proper reform is needed and that means moving away from fee-for-service medicine.

It may mean blended payments for chronic care, Medicare support for practice nurses, allied health staff or infrastructure, primary care from community health centres with salaried GPs or other forms of community health centres along the lines of the Aboriginal community-controlled health organisations.

It was time for Medicare when it started and it is now time for it to be reformed.

Dr Peter Davoren, secretary, Doctors Reform Society, Parkwood, Qld

It’s good to see medical practitioners out there exposing the myth of free doctor consultations.

Anthony Albanese has been flashing his Medicare card day in and day out because he knows Medicare is a much-loved necessity in the community. The Prime Minister uses it as tool of his misleading scare campaign signalling the Liberal National Party is opposed to this service.

His claim of free doctor’s visits for all doesn’t hold water. Fees for service under bulk-billing arrangements do not suit all doctors, and nor should they.

Medical practices are not and never will be government controlled, just as plumbers, electricians and other services needed by the public will never be government controlled. That is unless we persist in going down the socialist path and free enterprise is dead.

Being a doctor is not like being a politician where anyone can enter the circus. Before they can practise as medical doctors, they must undergo at least a decade of study and training. They make a pittance, if anything, during this time.

When they enter a practice and start providing medical treatment, I think they earn and are entitled to a reasonable fiscal return, certainly more than our politicians.

I’m afraid Albanese is trying very hard to get us to vote for him.

John George, Terrigal, NSW