Within moments of Anthony Albanese bounding onto a Tasmanian true believers rally stage — to the strains of Ganggajang’s 1980s “this is Australia” ode to Queensland’s humid canefields — the prime minister’s signature pitch to voters was already being neutralised by his opponent.
The promise for nine out of 10 GP visits to be free from out-of-pocket fees by 2030 was pitched as Albanese’s biggest shot at establishing a political “legacy” and keeping his job at the looming election.
An $8.5 billion political boost to families and young people struggling to keep up with primary care.
Labor is desperate for a fight over healthcare. To create political distance between it and the Coalition on a fundamental hip-pocket issue.
It now ranks second to cost-of-living concerns, according to one pollster the ABC spoke to on Sunday. Not long ago, health was in third place, behind housing.
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Not only does Labor’s policy seek to address widespread community frustration at having to come up with cash for a basic GP visit, campaigning on Medicare is a way to reprise Peter Dutton’s record as Australia’s “worst health minister”, according to a doctor’s survey the government repeats at every opportunity.
“Peter Dutton’s record on Medicare isn’t just scary. It’s bloody terrifying,” said Health Minister Mark Butler as he warmed up the crowd for Albanese in Tasmania on Sunday.
Labor and Liberal strategists both acknowledge this is natural Labor home turf. Voters expect that side of politics to deliver on health.
But as the prime minister was revving up the Labor crowd on that Launceston Tramshed stage, Dutton’s team issued a press release that sucked the air out of the PM’s pitch.
A Coalition government, Dutton said, would invest $9 billion in Medicare “to fix Labor’s healthcare crisis and ensure all Australians have timely and affordable access to a doctor”.
For those paying close attention to the numbers: that’s $500 million more than the government’s promise.
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The announcement expands an existing program
Welcome to the 2025 election campaign folks. The official start must surely now be imminent.
The speed with which the Coalition has backed Labor’s plan — which by the way, was originally proposed by Greens Leader Adam Bandt — will no doubt have some government strategists wishing they hadn’t gone even bigger.
Such as a plan to offer free universal dental coverage, another Greens idea that sits on the political smorgasbord of policy options. Many Labor backbenchers love it.
Instead, Albanese has chosen to expand an existing program.
The extra $2.5 billion a year — which is what this now-bipartisan Medibulk pledge is forecast to cost by the end of the decade — should be available without too much trouble in what will by then be an annual budget that spends close to $1 trillion a year.
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Taxes should bring in a roughly similar amount, assuming global commodity prices hold up. Add to that income tax bracket creep, in a process former treasury secretary Ken Henry this week likened to intergenerational “bastardry”
But the increase adds to an already groaning platter of options both sides have agreed to, none bigger than the AUKUS submarine program.
Spending more money is also not reform. At least not in any way that economists define it.
The bipartisan Medicare cash splash has no offsetting productivity requirement. There’s nothing in this promise that might improve the way healthcare is provided. It simply expands the envelope of what is already there.
What the GPs think
And then there’s what the GPs themselves think. Its success depends on them taking up Labor’s bulk billing incentive (a 12.5 per cent payment for clinics that switch to a fully bulk-billed model).
One owner of a South Australian practice wrote to the ABC saying they currently bulk bill around 5 per cent of patients without using the government’s bulk billing incentive, which currently applies to children and concession card holders.
“If I change over to this new system my practice will lose $300,000. Not happening, Jan,”
the doctor said.
According to the Australian General Practice Alliance (AGPA), a group that represents GPs, there still needs to be fundamental reform for the “red tape that binds and strangles our healthcare”.
They also warn that Labor’s changes stymie the “small business know-how and acumen” of GP practices.
“Several layers of bureaucracy suffocate us all and cost the system unnecessarily,” said Mukesh Haikerwal, deputy chair of the AGPA.
Voters who can’t afford visits to the doctor will clearly win from the Medicare boost. But there are still many questions about the bigger picture.
