Owler attack has Libs fearing another Mediscare campaign

The man being touted as Labor’s Mr Medicare — high-flying ­Sydney neurosurgeon Brian Owler — has come out swinging.

Labor's candidate for Bennelong Dr Brian Owler. Picture: AAP

The man being touted as Labor’s Mr Medicare — high-flying ­Sydney neurosurgeon Brian Owler — has come out swinging, warning voters that the government “will stop at nothing to destr­oy the foundations of our healthcare system, including Medicare”.

In his first public statement as the Labor candid­ate for Bennelong, Dr Owler told The Weekend Australian yesterday he had “led the fight” against the Abbott government’s savage health cuts as president of the Australian Medical Association in 2014.

“The compulsory co-payment proposed (then) … was a full-­frontal assau­lt on Medicare,’’ Dr Owler said. “This, combined with their freeze to Medicare rebates, convinced me the Liberals were not committed to a universal health system.’’

Labor would not only “restore Medicare funding’’, he said, it would work to reduce the balloon­ing out-of-pocket health expenses for Australians, which now stand at $30 billion a year, second only to the US.

It’s a big call for a political neophyte who admits it will be an “enormous task” trying to win former prime minister John Howard’s seat, currently held by former tennis champion John Alexan­der for the Liberals on a margin of 4.8 per cent.

 

For federal Health Minister Greg Hunt, it’s the “Mr Medicare” moniker which grates the most — an honour he says rightly belongs to the “father of Medicare”, John Deeble, who died last month. “Only weeks after John Deeble passed away, for someone to try and assume that mantle is deeply disrespectful and both Mr Owler and Mr Shorten should apologise,” Mr Hunt said.

For Liberal Party strategists, the real threat of Labor’s new pin-up boy in scrubs is what promises to be a re-run of Labor’s devastatingly effective Mediscare campaign in the 2016 federal election.

Mr Alexander has already dubbed Dr Owler “Mr Mastercard’’, accusing him of grand hypocrisy for being a part of the multi-millionaire medical spe­c­ialists club who routinely charge more than 200 per cent over the Medicare rebate.

There’s no questioning Dr Owler’s credentials as the public face of many laudable causes, ­including NSW’s 2011 “Don’t Rush” road safety campaign and championing the need for better medical care for refugees in offshore detention.

Yet senior Liberal Party operatives say despite Dr Owler’s polit­ical posturing, his “aggressive” and “divisive” negotiation style as AMA president did more damage than good for doctors, as well as patients. “He’s a walking, talking photo-op for Labor, but there’s no substance behind it,” said a senior Liberal source involv­ed in negotiations with him during his AMA presidency.

He said Dr Owler had been so busy grandstanding about his refusa­l to accept the controversial proposal for $7 co-payments on health visits that he refused to negotiate much-needed reforms, including scrapping expen­sive and unnecessary procedures on the Medicare Benefits Schedule.

That refusal, he said, ultim­ately led the Abbott government to extend a freeze on Medicare rebate­s for five years — a move Dr Owler has admitted “hurt doctors and patients”.

Public health advocates also have misgivings about Dr Owler’s capacity to promise genuine refor­m of the public health ­system. Australia’s leading health policy economist, Ian McAuley, told The Weekend Australian: “My guess is they (Labor) seem to be running dead on health, and Brian Owler can at least make them look like they care.”