Public hospital funding would be cut and the private health insurance rebate abolished under reported plans being progressed by a secret Turnbull Government hospitals taskforce.
This is proof the Government hasn’t given up attacking Medicare – they’ve expanded to another target.
As reported today, leaked official documents from the taskforce outline a proposal to combine current Commonwealth funding into a single pool covering public and private hospitals.
Funding provided by the Commonwealth for public hospitals would decrease and funding for private hospitals would increase.
The reports confirm that private health insurance would be abolished and the Commonwealth would not provide any support for health insurance extras such as physiotherapy and dental cover.
This would dramatically change the role the Commonwealth has in funding our public hospitals – a critical part of Medicare.
Malcolm Turnbull is reviving Tony Abbott’s discarded plans from the botched Federation White Paper – options which were discredited and ill thought-out.
Shadow Minister for Health and Medicare, Catherine King, said Malcolm Turnbull is hell-bent on destroying health.
“The Government can’t deny these plans when their most senior health bureaucrats are actively involved in working up options to attack the fabric of our universal health care system,” Ms King said.
“First they had a taskforce to privatise Medicare. Now they have a taskforce to destroy public hospitals. What will it take for them to drop their attacks?
“The Turnbull Government has zero credibility on health.
“This extraordinary leak is yet more proof of why they can never be trusted on health.”
MONDAY, 29 MAY 2017