Medicare
- Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS): A listing of the Medicare services subsidised by the Australian government. MBS lists the services the Australian government will provide a Medicare rebate for.
- Bulk Billing: Bulk billing is when your health professional accepts the Medicare benefit as full payment for a service.
Medicare rebate freeze
- The freeze was first started by the then Labor government in 2013, before being extended by the Abbott and Turnbull governments.
- The Coalition government put forward a number of proposals to reform the payment of health services including:
· $7 co-payment for GP, pathology and imaging services that would offset a A$5 reduction in Medicare rebates
· Ten-minute minimum for standard GP consultations
· $5 reduction in the Medicare rebate for "common GP consultations".
- In this month's budget the government extended the existing freeze – begun by the Labor government and extended by the Abbott one - for another two years to 2020, saving $925 million over the forward estimates but prompting a campaign by the Australian Medical Association which started at the weekend.
- AMA president Brain Owler estimated that this would likely cost patients up to $20 more for each GP visit.
- Labor has delivered its first election promise by announcing it will remove the freeze on medicare rebates for GP visits. Over the decade to 2026-27 the cost would be $12.2 billion. The government says that Labor can't afford to fund the promise.
Public ownership of Medicare Law
- Labor has pledged to set in stone the public ownership of Medicare by making it law. Opposition Leader Bill Shorten and his health spokeswoman Catherine King have promised to introduce legislation to prevent Medicare ever being privatised within 100 days if Labor forms government after the July 2 election.
Click the podcast icon above to listen Korean news in detail.
