Malcolm Turnbull isn’t backing off on Medicare privatisation – he’s just getting started.
Australians now know he wants to begin tearing down Medicare by selling off the payments system.
But Mr Turnbull’s privatisation agenda doesn’t stop there.
As the former Secretary of the Department of Health, the Grattan Institute’s Stephen Duckett, has said, the Liberals’ Medicare rebate freeze is nothing less than another attempt at privatisation:
“Privatisation is increasing the proportion of private payment in the health system.” [DR STEPHEN DUCKETT, GRATTAN INSTITUTE, 21 JUNE 2016]
There is only one consequence of Mr Turnbull’s rebate freeze – bulk-billing rates will fall and doctors will be forced to charge patients more every time they get sick.
The more you cut Medicare, the more you are forcing patients to fork out for health care from their own pocket.
This amounts to a full-scale assault on the public health system in the name of privatisation.
Malcolm Turnbull has long-supported the decline of Medicare in favour of a fully-privatised health system:
“In an ideal world, every Australian would have private health insurance. That would be the best, that would be the best outcome.” [MALCOLM TURNBULL, ABC RADIO, 15 MAY 2009]
In Malcolm Turnbull’s ideal world, every Australian would be paying for private health insurance and Medicare wouldn’t exist.
Unlike the Prime Minister, ordinary Australians live in the real world. And in the real world, Australians depend on Medicare.
Whether it’s Mr Turnbull’s secret plans to sell off parts of the Medicare system, or his massive cuts to Medicare through the rebate freeze, the result is the same. Medicare will be dismantled, and Australians will pay more out of their own pocket to visit the doctor.
When it comes to Malcolm Turnbull and Medicare, all roads lead to privatisation.