Interview Dr Bill Glasson, AMA President, with Ross Solly, Radio National's PM show - Federal Government Plan for a Levy to Fund a Medical Indemnity Scheme

MARK COLVIN: The Australian Medical Association, the AMA, is warning the Federal Government of mass walkouts by some specialists if it pushes ahead with a plan to impose a levy on doctors to fund a medical indemnity scheme.

The Government's considering imposing a levy to cover medical incidents that may have occurred many years ago but are yet to reach the courts.

And AMA task force has voted unanimously to oppose the levy.

AMA President, Dr Bill Glasson's been telling Ross Solly that if the levy is introduced it will be passed on to patients.

DR BILL GLASSON: It comes down to the issue of affordability and if this levy or this levy. It's not doctors, it will be sick patients, and so we perceive this as re-attacks on the family's health. It will be directly passed on to the patient and so you and I, the patient, would be paying for it.

So we should think of it in terms of this being funded by sick patients rather than actually being funded by doctors because they simply are the conduit by which the money comes up, or down, the ladder.

ROSS SOLLY: So is there a concern in the medical profession that doctors of today are going to be paying for the mistakes of doctors maybe two decades ago? 

DR GLASSON: Very much so. It's the patients of today that are paying for the, you know, for the patients of the past decades. We say it's the wrong tax on the wrong doctors on the wrong patients, and we think it's misdirected and essentially it will impact on your ability to first of all access doctors, and, secondly, to afford doctors.

ROSS SOLLY: You've warned the Health Insurance Commission not to send levy letters to doctors. I mean, that wouldn't have been happening yet because it's not law yet is it?

DR GLASSON: No, I mean they were due to go out in August and we understand that they're trying to develop the paper work at the moment, and if those forms go out, or those claims go out without a clear signal to the, you know, the doctors, and I suppose the public of Australia, what they actually mean in relation to the cost then I think it's going, you're going to have a very nervous medical electorate out there, that will decide, you know, to often modify their practice, in other words, stop doing obstetrics, or stop doing the anaesthetic side of obstetrics etc. In other words impact on the workforce yet again.

We can't afford to lose more doctors and patients can't afford to pay more, so we've got to have some system that is a bit more equitable and I suppose the question is, is it fair for the sick patients to continue to pay, or should we be asking for the well patients to pay, in other words, the general taxation base?

ROSS SOLLY: This is not a bluff is it, if they send out these letters that obstetricians might walk away from their jobs?

DR GLASSON: I promise the Government that this is not a bluff. I promise the Government that we are in and heading towards the biggest work force shortage this country has ever seen in medicine and I promise the Government that patients cannot continue to pay and they will drop out of the private system and put even more pressure on a struggling public system.

ROSS SOLLY: And just finally, just going back to a question I asked earlier on, does the AMA, I mean if the Government turns around and say well have you got a better solution, does the AMA have an answer?

DR GLASSON: I mean, the answer to that is that we think it's unfair, the current model. We would like to suggest that the general taxation base, in other words, the well patients out there, in a small increment, fund that through general taxation.

ROSS SOLLY: An increase in the Medicare Levy?

DR GLASSON: No, not through Medicare Levy. I would just prefer to say increase in - just to pick it up from general taxation, and I think there will be a small impost on the Australian population at large but it would cause a significant positive impact in maintaining medical services and hopefully maintaining some affordability for struggling patients out there.

COMPERE: AMA President, Dr Bill Glasson, the Federal Health Minister, Kay Patterson was not available to speak to PM.

Ends