CHRONIC DISEASE CANNOT BE MANAGED BY CUTTING $2 BILLION FOR GENERAL PRACTICE

Proposals to better manage chronic care are doomed unless the Turnbull Government abandons its more than $2 billion in cuts to general practice.
 
No serious health expert disputes the need for Australia’s health system to better manage patients with chronic conditions and Labor welcomes the proposals of the Primary Health Care Advisory Group review to better manage the care of the one-in-five Australians living with two or more chronic health conditions.
 
But in an all too familiar pattern when it comes to health policy under Malcolm Turnbull, today’s announcement comes with little funding, and little detail.
 
The proposal has clearly been rushed out to distract attention from the Turnbull Government’s hospital funding chaos and comes just a day after a humiliated Minister for Health admitted on national radio she had been completely sidelined by the Prime Minister, and had no involvement in negotiations over hospital funding.
 
The embargoed release also contains a proposal for “The creation of a National Minister Data Set.”  Is this a data set for monitoring ministers, or was this point meant to be a minimum data set and further evidence of how this proposal has been rushed out to distract attention from the hospital funding debacle?
 
Last year’s OECD Health Care Quality Review  warned Australia’s ageing population will lead to a growing burden of chronic disease and highlighted the need for greater investment in primary care to tackle the rise in chronic disease.
 
That is why in Government, Labor commenced work on reforming Medicare to better manage chronic disease through bundled item numbers and chronic disease management plans.
 
By contrast, the Turnbull Government is ripping more than $2 billion out of general practice, a move that can only worsen the management of chronic disease by driving down bulk billing, forcing doctors to raise fees and end universal access to Medicare.
 
This comes on top of $60 billion in cuts to public hospitals, billions more ripped out of preventive and community health programs and cut $650 million from bulk billing for pathology and diagnostic imaging.
 
Labor showed that a government committed to Medicare can deliver an affordable and sustainable health system without making pensioners and families pay a tax every time they need a doctor.
 
With as many as one in five now diagnosed with two or more chronic conditions, Australia need proper investment in primary care, not more health cuts.