AMA Transcript - Pre-Budget Submission

PHILIP CLARK: Just back on health spending for a moment, Professor Brian Owler is the Federal President of the AMA. He's got stuck into the Government over what he sort of thinks are basic untruths about health spending and has said that unless we fund hospitals properly, then issues like education, employment, all the other things we value are also going to be undermined. He's on the line this morning, Professor Owler, good morning.

BRIAN OWLER: Good morning.

PHILIP CLARK:  Well the Government's canned any increase to the GST, so is there going to be any money for health available to fulfil the AMA's wishlist?

BRIAN OWLER: Well that's a good question, we released our public hospital report card just a few weeks ago and what we know is that our hospitals were already under-performing, they're really struggling now to meet any of the benchmarks that were previously set for them but when these funding changes come in next year, which are left over from the 2014 budget, we know that States and Territories are just not going to have the money to fund our public hospitals and of course that's one of the issues that the GST rise was supposed to address.

PHILIP CLARK: What do you think's the most urgent priority?

BRIAN OWLER: Well I think restoring public hospital funding is the number one priority. We know that our hospitals aren't going to be able to cope with the demand that's going to be placed on them, and we're going to start to see our services suffering and, of course, that's going to affect the most vulnerable in our community; those in particular that rely on our public hospitals. So I think that's number one. We do have other issues as well, we know we've got a freeze on the MBS indexation which, of course, is shifting more money onto patient's hip pockets, and we've already seen recent cuts to pathology and diagnostic imaging as well. So we seem like we're taking so much money out of health, but we are going to start seeing impact on the lives of every day Australians.

PHILIP CLARK: Yes, it must frustrate you to see this constant Federal-State tennis match going on with the ball just being hit from one to the other with promises to resolve it somehow, but there doesn't seem much will on either side to actually address the fact that- as you say- there's a shortfall, there's more coming, and no one's proposing any means of how to fill it.

BRIAN OWLER: Well that's right and so I think in this to-and-fro it's very clearly the onus is on the Federal Government. I mean the Commonwealth has a responsibility to fund public hospitals and to fund healthcare. We see the States as managers of their hospital system but they can't do a job, reasonable job, doing that unless they actually have adequate resources to do it. And just to say over and over again that there's inefficiencies. Let me tell you we have been working on efficiencies in our public hospital systems for decades and the changes and improvements that have been made have been dramatic. Now we will continue to do that. But even with that driving efficiencies and those savings that we get year on year, we know that we've got an ageing population, we know that there's an increased demand for health resources, unless we fund our health system properly, we are going to see it impact on the health and the lives of everyday Australians.

PHILIP CLARK: I mean critics say well look the trouble with health spending is it's completely open ended, you can never spend enough on it and the more you spend on it the more that health systems, hospitals and doctors want to spend.

BRIAN OWLER: Well you can spend a lot more and indeed our public hospitals are having a difficult time coping with the demand now, but there does come a point where you start to cut the health budget to such a degree that, of course, you're going to start to see problems in our hospital system. And that is going to mean that people aren't going to be able to access the sort of services that they need to. And that's going to mean that people live less. You know, at the end of the day, this is, as a first world economy, we should be valuing longer healthcare. It underpins education, it underpins employment, it underpins our economy, so unless we start to recognise and value the healthcare sector and value health we are going to start to see the impact of these cuts.

PHILIP CLARK: You make the point that, in 2006-2007, health was a bit over 18 per cent of the Commonwealth budget, by 15-16 it's down to 15.9 per cent, so the Government can't claim that health spending's out of control.

BRIAN OWLER: Well it is, because when you look at the projections, everyone gets worried so, of course, you go back and you look at what the actual spending increases have been. I mean, the last two years we've actually had the lowest rise in healthcare expenditure of the last decade, of about 3 per cent, and it was even less the year before. Now, I mean those are very small increases in such a big area where we actually do have an increasing life expectancy and a growing population so the narrative that's been very successful in allowing them to cut the health budget, but it doesn't just stack up on the raw numbers.

PHILIP CLARK: Good to talk, thank you.

BRIAN OWLER: Thank you.

PHILIP CLARK: Professor Brian Owler who's the Federal President of the Australian Medical Association.

8 February 2016

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