$1.9 billion hole in Labor's health plan

07/08/10

Nicola Roxon must immediately clarify the Rudd-Gillard Government’s intentions to phase out private health insurance rebates.

Labor has tried twice to legislate to means test the rebates on private health insurance but yesterday the Labor candidate in the electorate of Sturt gave an “iron clad guarantee” that the Gillard Government would not means test the rebates.

Nicola Roxon needs to tell Australians whether Labor intends to pursue its ill-considered plans to phase out rebates or whether it has seen the error of its ways and now dumped these measures which would undermine private health insurance.

If the Rudd-Gillard Government has abandoned its plans to introduce a means test which will drive people out of private health insurance it must also remove the $1.9 billion in savings it has factored into the forward estimates.

Nicola Roxon must clearly state where Labor now stands and indicate whether Labor candidate Rick Sarre’s “iron clad guarantee” is as worthless as her own promises before the last election not to change the health insurance rebates had proven to be.

Despite Kevin Rudd guaranteeing in writing that a Labor Government would not change the rebates, once in power the promise counted for nothing with the Rudd-Gillard Government twice moving to phase out the 30 per cent rebates.

The Coalition with the support of cross-bench Senators successfully prevented the introduction of means testing which would have seen 1.7 million Australians slugged with massive hikes in private health insurance premiums.

People would have dropped out of health insurance meaning even further premium increases for those who remained and with less people covered by insurance the strains on our public hospitals would have increased dramatically.

Perhaps Nicola Roxon and Labor have now realised the damage their ideologically driven agenda will do to our health system – but they need to come clean. Where do they stand?

We’re standing up for families.