FEDERAL Health Minister Sussan Ley’s announcement yesterday to dump plans to cut Medicare rebates paid to doctors was welcomed around Australia.
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It was yet another example of the Coalition government being forced to abandon widely unpopular legislation.
In December, it scrapped plans to charge patients a $7 co-payment, in August it was forced to step away from Senator George Brandis’s draft legislation to change section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, and more recently the Senate tossed out changes that would give consumers less protection from unscrupulous financial planners.
Not only is much of this proposed legislation poorly thought out, in some cases it also bears elements of spitefulness against the population.
In the case of yesterday’s scrapped plan, which was due to commence on January 19, by taking away the rebate for doctors the government was forcing them to cop the wrath of patients who thus would have had to make up the shortfall.
The government’s failure to realise that general practices are really small businesses is a huge and basic flaw in its understanding of primary health care, one so serious that it could have compromised the health of all but the wealthy in Australia.
Many of the shire’s doctors were united in their opposition to the changes to Medicare rebates for two main reasons.
To them, the cut to the rebate for short consultations denoted the government’s ignorance of how GPs maintain a good balance between short and long visits, and of how a “six-minute” consultation is not inferior to a longer one.
For those of them who decided to delay lifting their fees until the Senate made a decision next month, the wait is over.
The government must learn to draft legislation that will have not only financial benefits but also not be seen as an attack or insult to its citizens.
Ms Ley might just have saved Medicare from becoming terminally ill.
Though she said she still intended to introduce the $5 cut to GP payments on July 1, she said she was prepared to listen.
We can only hope that if the government continues its attempts to meddle with Medicare, it will make an appointment and consult with the experts, our GPs, who will help it to come up with a more efficacious method of treatment to keep Medicare in tip-top health.
How many more bitter pills are we prepared to swallow?
- Jocelyn Righton