Labor's promise to save patients being hit with a GP co-payment of up to $20 has been welcomed by health groups, but condemned by the coalition as unaffordable.
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten on Thursday visited the NSW Central Coast to unveil his plan to restore indexation of the Medicare Benefits Schedule from January 2017.
Doctors say the freeze extended by the coalition government in the May budget would reduce the availability of bulk billing and cost patients up to $20 more for each GP visit.
Mr Shorten said Labor would always protect Medicare.
"Having failed three times to introduce its GP tax - due to Labor's opposition in the Senate - the Liberals imposed a GP tax by stealth, freezing the indexation of the rebates paid to doctors for four years," he said.
"Then in his first budget, (Prime Minister) Malcolm Turnbull ripped another $925 million out of Medicare by extending the freeze by a further two years to 2020."
However, Mr Turnbull said Labor was ignoring the multibillion-dollar cost of the move, which could only be paid for with higher taxes.
"We are spending more money than ever on health and the most important thing is that Australians know that every dollar we spend is fully funded," the prime minister told reporters in Sydney.
"We have increased funding for hospitals by $2.9 billion (over four years) and we have done so while bringing the budget back into balance."
Finance Minister Mathias Cormann said the government would stick by the freeze.
"The measure that is in the budget is our policy," he said.
Doctors welcomed the Labor pledge, saying it would provide them with certainty.
"Patients are the big winners from this announcement, especially working families with a few kids, the elderly, the chronically ill and the most vulnerable in the community," Australian Medical Association president Brian Owler said.
The rebate freeze was temporarily introduced by Labor in 2013, and extended from July 2014 under the coalition.
Bulk-billing rates for GP visits are tracking around 84 per cent despite the freeze.
Health Minister Sussan Ley has said the government is committed to a possible review of the freeze as further efficiencies are found in the health system.
She had earlier called a truce with pathologists over changes to bulk-billing incentive payments.
There will now be a three-month delay until the government can pass legislation to make rent cheaper for collection centres.
Asked whether Labor would restore $57 billion in hospitals funding it says has been cut under the coalition, Mr Shorten told reporters: "We will have more to say about our health policy as this election unfolds."
