Dr Kerryn Phelps, AMA President, with Mark Colvin, ABC Radio 'PM'

Sound and fury over a lot of housekeeping is the way one health academic, who didn't wish to be named, describes the current health debate. Health policy officer from the Australian Consumers Association, Nicola Ballenden, had a lukewarm reaction to the Prime Minister's promises of today.

BALLENDEN: I think we, it would be fair say we'd be under-whelmed by the health announcements from the Prime Minister. While there are some welcome, welcome moves in there, overall this is a peace-meal effort I would think, and not evident of any sort of grand vision for the future for our health system.

WHITE: The AMA's president, Dr Kerryn Phelps, says there's good and bad in the Prime Minister's announcements.

PHELPS: Well I think that there's some welcome news and some disappointment. The welcome news is that we're going to see some attention paid to improving palliative care, and I think that that's very important that people are able to die with dignity and with appropriate care. I think it's important that we also decentralise cancer radiotherapy treatment, and that is an announcement that we've now heard from both the Coalition and the ALP. On the disappointing side, I think that we are still going to see cost shifting and a blame shifting between the Federal Government and the states under the Coalition's agreement, and we resource almost nothing for public hospitals.

WHITE: And Dr Phelps says there is a need for more to be done.

PHELPS: I don't believe that the Coalition can stand on its record at this point. I think that we have a crisis in the public hospitals, we have a crisis in aged care, and we have a looming crisis in general practice. And I don't see any great joy in this policy release today that will address any of those issues.

WHITE: Extra funds for GPs in outer metropolitan areas was welcomed by the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, but its president, Paul Hemming, says it's not as good as it sounds.

HEMMING: But the problem there is that what they're talking about is bringing specialist trainees into general practice, rather than those people who've been specifically trained for general practice. And although that might help get numbers on the ground, it really isn't providing the best quality care to people in those areas.

WHITE: And it's in the detail that voters will have to look for major differences between Labor and the Coalition on health. In the past there were key ideological differences between the major parties. But John Howard's commitment to Medicare in 1996 removed a major bone of contention. And while the Labor Party has attacked the Government's emphasis on private health insurance, it's now committed to keeping the $2 billion annual spending on measures such as the insurance rebate. So if the Government's announcements disappointed, what about Labor's plans for a Medicare alliance, more money for public hospitals, and after hours services? Paul Hemming.

HEMMING: Unfortunately not, the Labor Party policy as announced last week focused essentially on public hospitals. Now that, that's fine, but only something like 20 per cent of patients actually have their health care in public hospitals. The vast majority of health care in Australia takes place in general practice.

WHITE: Do you think there is much difference between the approaches of either of the major parties?

HEMMING: From our perspective what we've seen so far, is really very much a bandaid type approach. We've seen them papering over the cracks in the Medicare system, without addressing the fundamentals and without providing adequate resources for the basics of health care, for Medicare rebates, for patients who see their GPs.

COLVIN: Dr Paul Hemming, president of the Royal College of General Practitioners, ending that report from Annie White.

Ends