NEW REPORT TORPEDOES LIBERAL LIES ABOUT NEED FOR GP TAX

The National Health Performance Authority (NHPA) has torpedoed the Abbott Government’s justification for its continuing attempts to introduce a GP Tax, confirming that general practice remains the most efficient and cost effective part of the health system.
 
The report confirms that contrary to the repeated claims by the Treasurer that Australians visit a GP an average of 11 times per year, the actual figure is just half that, at 5.6 times per year.
 
The report also confirms that the 13.5 per cent of patients who are very high or frequent users of GP services are generally those who need this high level of care – patients with complex and chronic conditions.
 
Rather than making unnecessary visits to GPs, these patients are receiving care which helps keep them out of the much more expensive public hospital system.
 
Despite this, the report finds around 23 per cent of patients who presented to casualty, felt they should instead have been treated by a GP.
 
Research by state governments has confirmed this figure would soar if the Abbott Government succeeded with its plans to force more patients to pay to see a doctor and drive down bulk billing.
 
The NHPA report backs up last year’s Australian Institute of Health and Welfare Report which confirmed that health funding was growing at its slowest rate in at least 30 years.
 
Despite this, Minister Ley and her colleagues are pressing on with yet another version of their already thrice failed GP Tax.
 
After failing to force a $7 GP Tax onto voters, the government then tried, and failed to hit them with a $20 GP Tax and a $5 GP Tax, before now moving to “direct billing”.
 
Direct billing potentially clears the way for patients currently being bulk-billed to be charged ever increasing gap payments.
 
It would act in the exact same way as the GP Tax, imposing an up-front charge between patients and their GP, undermining bulk-billing and destroying Medicare’s fundamental principle: universal access.
 
As the minister has repeatedly made clear, the Abbott Government remains committed to up-front fees and the end of universal access to Medicare.
 
“Co-payment”, “price signal”, “value signal”, “contribution” or “direct billing” –  it doesn’t matter what the government calls it, the end result is the same – it’s still a GP Tax, it’s still an attack on bulk billing, and patients are still being hit for more.