AMA Transcript - AMA Doctor Forums, Government’s Medicare proposals
REPORTER: …… [indistinct] …………
A/PROF BRIAN OWLER: Well, GPs are meeting here in Sydney today to discuss the future of Medicare and, of course, the changes and the proposals that the Government's been making.
There are meetings happening in Melbourne, and Brisbane and Adelaide today as well.
These changes affect GPs right across the country. GPs are very unhappy about the changes that have been announced and, while there's been a reversal of the proposal for level A and level B consultations, we still have a freeze to indexation, which is essentially the dismantling of Medicare, and we also have a five dollar cut to the Medicare rebate.
These proposals were announced by the Prime Minister.
The Government's clearly having troubles at the moment, and I think one of the key issues has been the Medicare rebate and the changes that the Government's previously announced.
I think if the Government really wants to get serious about health policy it needs to take these changes off the table, give general practitioners the chance to talk about real solutions.
It's very hard to do that when these changes are hanging over their heads, and so I think the Prime Minister needs to make the captain's call and scrap the co-payment proposals that are currently before him.
ENDS
8 February 2015
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