AMA, crossbenchers will have say on co-payment

LEGISLATION enabling a $7 co-payment will not be introduced until the government has held talks with the AMA.

LEGISLATION enabling a $7 co-payment will not be introduced until the Abbott government has held talks with the Australian Medical Association and Senate crossbenchers, Health Minister Peter Dutton said yesterday.

But the government is not independently working on any alternatives — despite facing a likely Senate defeat — and is refusing to release the modelling and options paper behind its controversial budget measure.

Initial talks last night between the minister and AMA president Brian Owler made little headway, with the AMA still insisting the government abandon its plan to cut $5 from the standard Medicare rebate. Mr Dutton had earl­ier described the AMA as “the doctor’s union” and suggested it would always put members first.

The $7 patient co-payment was designed to compensate for the rebate cut — savings the government would initially use to establish a $20 billion medical research future fund — and give medicos a $2 profit.

The bulk-billing incentive payment introduced by the Howard government would also be altered to reward those who charged exact­ly $7, creating what Mr Dutton has described as an “$11 differential” and a “windfall” of almost $500 million overall.

While the budget proposed that concession-card holders and children pay no more than 10 co-payments in a 12-month period, Mr Dutton has called on medicos to rearrange their payment schedules and continue bulk-billing their most vulnerable patients.

The government will not legislate to that effect, however, with Mr Dutton saying “that’s a decision for the doctors as it is now”.

“The majority of the population can afford $7 with an appropriate safety net,’’ he said.

He would not be drawn on whether the government might back away from the rebate cut, and forgo some savings, but said the research fund was “central to the government’s proposal”.

“We’re happy to look at the (AMA) suggestions,’’ Mr Dutton said.

“They believe they can improve the co-payment that the government has on the table, and that runs in parallel with our discussions with the senators.”

His comments came after the Department of Health formally identified the documents the government relied on to propose the co-payment — and refused to release them under Freedom of Information laws because the matter had gone to cabinet.

The Australian revealed in May that Mr Dutton claimed modelling predicted the co-payment would slow growth in visits to a GP by one percentage point, to about 3.7 per cent in its first year, and a further half a percentage point in the second year.

The FOI request uncovered a “ministerial brief on options and variations of a budget proposal” along with a “budget proposal” document from the primary care branch, dated April 25, a “costing of financial impact of a budget proposal” from the Medicare finan­cing and listing branch prepared the same day, and the prim­ary care branch’s “ministerial brief on a budget proposal”, dated May 13.

But The Australian was denied access to the documents and Mr Dutton refused to intervene.