Medicare has emergxjmtzywed as a key policy battleground of the upcoming federal election, with Labor refusing to back down from a “Mediscare”-style campaign – so what is actually going on and why does it matter?
How did we get here?
To understand the current landscape, you have to cast your mind back to 2014, when the then-Abbott government unsuccessfully attempted to introduce a GP co-payment.
The proposal to get Australians to pay a $7 patient co-payment was wildly unpopular, but ministers and government MPs still had to front up and defend the policy.
Senator Anne Ruston, then just a government backbencher, told parliament at the time Medicare would not be sustainable without it.
“Everybody would like to think we could go on with universal health care, with universal education and with all these wonderful things over the last 20 years Australians have come to accept as a given. Unfortunately, the credit card is maxed out,” she also said.
The attempted change set the scene for Labor to launch a campaign against the Coalition’s track record on health amid the 2016 election – dubbed “Mediscare”.
It was so successful that a Bill Shorten-led Labor outperformed expectations and came within a whisker of winning government by claiming Malcolm Turnbull had a secret plan to privatise Medicare.
Did he have a super-secret plan? No. But that didn’t stop Labor.
However, an attempt at a 2019 Mediscare re-run was less successful.
Why does this matter now?
When Scott Morrison named Senator Ruston as the person to replace the outgoing Health Minister Greg Hunt, Labor immediately seized on her vocal support of the co-payment.
“Anne Ruston has made it very clear she wants to take the universal out of universal healthcare,” Labor leader Anthony Albanese said on Sunday.
“She has made it very clear that if we have a re-election of the Morrison government, we will see more cuts to Medicare over the next three years.”
Senator Ruston on Sunday said she no longer supported the co-payment model and rejected Labor’s claims she would cut Medicare.
But by Monday morning, the health minister in waiting gave herself some wiggle room.
She was asked a total of seven times across the round of media appearances to categorically rule out any future cuts.
“We absolutely have guaranteed Medicare in law,” she told ABC’s AM, but stopped short of categorically ruling it out.
It meant just hours later, Mr Morrison again had to hose down speculation his government had a plan to cut Medicare.
“I thought Anne Ruston … said yesterday there would not be any cuts. And I would repeat that today,” he told reporters in Perth.
“I was clear about that.”
Despite the clarification, Labor insists the appointment should “send a shiver down the spine of every Australian who needs affordable health care”.
What are the facts?
Senator Ruston said what she said. But that was seven years ago, and said in promotion of the government’s policy.
However, the Medicare Guarantee Act referred to in the Senator’s defence is misleading.
The legislation, which passed in 2017, established the Medicare Guarantee Fund.
The fund includes revenue from the Medicare levy and a top up from the government to meet the costs of the Medicare Benefits Schedule and Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.
But that’s it. No guarantee or protection for any further cuts to Medicare.
Also not helping matters is the backlash the Coalition received after it was accused of not providing adequate time for stakeholders to assess the impact of major changes to the MBS last July.
Changes to more than 900 items for rebates for private orthopaedic, general and heart surgery were rolled out following a review of all 5,700 rebates.
At the time, the government argued the changes were necessary to modernise the MBS.
Why does it matter?
After a poor week on the hustings, Labor was in desperate need of a reset and it is hoping it can build it around Senator Ruston’s appointment.
It also comes off the back of a very successful state Labor campaign run in South Australia about the “ramping” crisis in its March election.
But so far, the Australian Medical Association has been left underwhelmed by both major parties.
In an interview on Monday, vice-president Chris Moy called on Mr Morrison and Mr Albanese to up the ante on health.
“We’re gonna see really who’s the true friend of Medicare,” he said.
“At the moment all we’re seeing is negatives from both parties.”
