Top doctor Nick Coatsworth criticises Anthony Albanese’s Medicare policy

Australia’s former deputy chief medical officer Nick Coatsworth has blasted Labor’s flagship $8.5bn Medicare investment as a ‘deeply flawed and vulnerable policy’.

Former deputy chief medical officer Nick Coatsworth. Picture: Getty Images

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Australia’s former deputy chief medical officer Nick Coatsworth has blasted Labor’s flagship $8.5bn Medicare investment as a “deeply flawed and vulnerable policy”, urging the Coalition to take up the “fight” and properly critique the key pillar of the government’s second-term agenda.

Dr Coatsworth’s intervention comes after The Australian revealed Mark Butler’s mega Department of Health, Ageing and Disability told the minister in a briefing that it expected around a quarter of GPs not to take up the government’s new incentive scheme designed to boost bulk-billing rates.

Anthony Albanese revealed the Medicare investment – the biggest single funding injection into the scheme in 40 years – ahead of the May 3 election and used the policy as part of his message to Australians that Labor was committed to protecting Medicare while the Coalition would tear it down.

“Labor will cement themselves to Mediscare campaigning until it stops working. Elections will be fought on this ground for the foreseeable future,” Dr Coatsworth said in comments first appearing in Quadrant magazine.

“Conservatives must never again cede, but fight.”

Dr Coatsworth, who was the deputy chief medical officer during the Covid pandemic, said Labor’s promise to deliver free general practice for millions “will never materialise in the form Australians expect”.

“The bulk billing ‘solution’ is more theatre than reform,” he said. “Labor has doubled-down on the bulk-billing incentive as the means to shift practitioner behaviour. Effectively they are trying to pressure doctors to bulk-bill through the ‘incentive’ without dictating the fee that can be charged.

“There is zero possibility of this working, given that more and more practitioners charge in excess of what the bulk-billing incentive would provide for a standard consultation.”

However, Mr Butler rebuffed criticism over Labor’s tactics to weaponise Medicare during the election campaign, saying “Australians know it’s only the Labor Party who will protect and strengthen Medicare”.

“For the first time, Labor will expand bulk-billing incentives to all Australians and create an additional new incentive payment for practices that bulk-bill every patient,” a spokeswoman for Mr Butler said.

“This will mean nine out of 10 GP visits will be bulk-billed by 2030, boosting the number of fully bulk-billed practices to around 4800 nationally – triple the current number.”

Dr Coatsworth said the Prime Minister had used Medicare and his own Medicare card during press conferences as “an emotional anchor” that distracted from the issues around the policy, in a similar way to how former Victorian premier Daniel Andrews “was able to manipulate a significant majority of Victorians into forgetting his ineptitude in pandemic management and rallying behind the destructive Covid-zero policies of 2021”.

Dr Coatsworth lay much of the blame over the flawed Medicare policy at the feet of the ­Coalition, which he blasted for giving Labor “a blank cheque” and instantly matching the $8.5bn commitment.

“Conservatives need a … sharp, early challenge – not in the heat of the 2028 campaign, but now – as soon Labor’s promises begin to unravel,” he said.

“A successful conservative counter to Labor health policy must achieve three goals: universal access to general practice with no to minimal out-of-pocket costs; preservation of choice and autonomy for doctors and patients; and be the vanguard of a new era of prioritising prevention in Australian healthcare.”

Opposition health spokeswoman Anne Ruston said the Coalition was “extremely critical” of Labor for its lofty promises of making nine in 10 doctors visits free in the face of the department warning that a quarter of GPs would not bulk bill.

“This is modelling that the Prime Minister would have had access to all along, but he refused to be transparent,” she said.

“Despite Labor’s shameful campaign, Australians will continue to face the reality that they need both their credit card and their Medicare card when they go to the GP at a time when their credit card is being charged the highest out-of-pocket costs on record.”