Albanese hopeful on health means test

10 Feb 2012, 5:02 pm   -   Source: AAP

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Anthony Albanese is hopeful Labor's plan to means test the private health insurance rebate will clear the lower house next week.

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Labor's plan to means test the private health insurance rebate could clear its first big hurdle by the end of next week, with the help of the independents in the lower house.

The government's house leader Anthony Albanese is hopeful a vote may be taken to scale back the 30 per cent rebate after the next round of parliamentary debate on the measures kicks off on Monday .

"It's scheduled for more debate next week," Mr Albanese told reporters in Sydney on Friday.

The government needs the votes of three cross-benchers and is likely to get them from the Greens' Adam Bandt and independents Rob Oakeshott and Andrew Wilkie before the bills proceed to the Senate.

The government expects to claw back $2.4 billion over three years from the rebate, which began under the Howard government as a way to encourage people into private health insurance and ease the pressure on public hospitals.

The Coalition opposes the changes, which will allow a means test for individuals earning more than $80,000 and couples earning more than $160,000 and increase the Medicare levy surcharge for those without private health cover.

"We're going to fight it," Opposition Leader Tony Abbott told reporters in Melbourne on Friday.

But Mr Abbott would not commit a coalition government to overturning the means test if it returned to government.

"Ask me that question if we come to that situation."

Opposition health spokesman Peter Dutton was also not prepared to say the means test would be overturned.

"We're looking at a number of measures at the moment which may further enhance the attractiveness of private health insurance," he told ABC television.

"There may be smarter ways that we can do that."

Mr Albanese said the changes were about equity for households on lower incomes.

"Tony Abbott, of course, is once again standing for the big end of town," Mr Albanese said.

"I don't think that my private health insurance should be subsidised by working people in my electorate, struggling to make ends meet, earning less than a quarter of what I am."

Prime Minister Julia Gillard said it was a matter of fairness.

"That's the Australian kind of ethos, that's the Australian fair go and we think that that should be in private health insurance as well," she told reporters in Sydney.

Deloitte research cited by the opposition says that if the means test clears parliament, about 1.6 million Australians will drop private hospital cover over the next five years and a further 4.3 million will downgrade their cover.

The government disputes those figures, saying Treasury modelling suggests only 0.3 per cent, or 27,000 people, will drop out of the private system.

Nationals leader Warren Truss said the means-testing of the rebate was a broken promise by Labor, which has twice failed to get such legislation through parliament.

"True to form, this prime minister, her predecessor and the current health minister are at it again, betraying the trust of Australians," he said in a statement.

In 2009 former health minister Nicola Roxon, now the attorney-general, said the government was "firmly committed to retaining the existing private health insurance rebates".

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