Mediscare campaign aimed at marginals

Labor is positioning for a Mediscare 2.0 election campaign, vowing to unfreeze rebates on 100 GP items a year.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten: “Medicare was at the top of my plan in the last election and this election will be no different.” Picture: AAP

Labor is positioning for a Medi­scare 2.0 election campaign, vowing to unfreeze rebates on 100 GP items a year ahead of schedule as it kicks off a new marginal seats offensive over claimed Coalition “cuts” to health spending.

Bill Shorten will today announce Labor will remove the indexation freeze on key Medicare items, including mental health consultations, chronic disease management plans and urgent after-hours care, within 50 days if Labor wins the May election.

Labor first froze Medicare items in 2013 as a “temporary measure”. The freeze was extended by the Coalition in 2014 and again in 2016 by Scott Morrison as treasurer.

The freeze is budgeted to continue until July 2020 but Mr Shorten said Labor would resume indexation of benefits from July 2019, at a cost of $213 million.

Mr Shorten, who waged a successful scare campaign at the 2016 poll claiming the government planned to privatise Medicare, said the future of the health system would again be Labor’s No 1 election issue.

“Medicare was at the top of my plan in the last election and this election will be no different,” the Opposition Leader said.

“Every day Mr Morrison’s Medicare freeze stays in place is another day families are paying higher out-of-pocket costs to visit the doctor.”

Labor’s Mediscare 2.0 campaign will urge voters in key seats and on social media to “Stop Morrison’s Liberal Cuts”.

However, federal hospital funding is at record levels, with the purported “cuts” comparing Coalition spending to an undelivered Gillard government pledge to pay for 50 per cent of every public hospital treatment.

In a recent interview, Health Minister Greg Hunt said the Coalition had listed more than 2000 new medicines on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme while delivering “record bulk billing rates, record immunisation rates, record spending on Medicare”.

“I would welcome a debate around health because last time Labor was in they had the disastrous super clinic (policy) that failed catastrophically but, most significantly, they stopped listing new medicines when Bill Shorten was assistant treasurer,” he said.

The revitalised Mediscare attack will build on the party’s 2016 campaign, which nearly ended the Turnbull government. The 2016 campaign made the false claim the government was plotting to end universal healthcare.

Labor will also revisit its attacks over now-dumped corporate tax cuts, saying it will prioritise healthcare over “handouts to the multinationals”.

“As Treasurer, Scott Morrison cut billions of dollars out of Medicare while trying to give an $80 billion tax handout to big business,” Mr Shorten said.

“As a result of Morrison’s Liberal cuts, Australians are now paying more than ever to see a GP or a specialist. A staggering 1.3 million people are now delaying or skipping basic healthcare because they cannot afford it.”

Medicare rebates currently frozen until July 2020 include care for patients in imminent danger of death, family counselling, medicines reviews and counselling for pregnant women.

Labor has also announced a new system of specialist care through public hospital outpatient clinics and will cap private health premium increases at 2 per cent for two years.

The Australian revealed last week up to 65,000 families would be hit by Labor’s pledge to scrap private health insurance rebates for “junk” policies, saving $80m.