Sat, 10th May 2008
Nelson Doorstop - Medicare Surcharge, Merger, Olympic Games, Burma...
The Hon Dr Brendan Nelson MP
Leader of the Opposition
E&OE
DR NELSON:
This decision to basically scrap the Medicare surcharge for higher income people that do not have private health insurance is the cruelest con that Mr Rudd has perpetrated so far on Australians and particularly those Australians who are sick and in need of hospital care.
What this is going to do is to put almost half a million more Australians into already desperately long public hospital queues. I mean the financially and physically fit will no longer be taking up private health insurance, leaving pensioners, battlers and those who know that they’re going to need their private health insurance to face even higher private health insurance premiums.
Mr Rudd on the 20th of November last year sent a letter to the Private Health Insurance Association of Australia and assured them that he would not be making changes to these arrangements and here he is five months later perpetrating a cruel con on Australians and particularly those Australians who need private health insurance, those Australians who need hospital care. It seems again that whilst John Howard was the quiet achiever, Mr Rudd is the not so quiet deceiver.
QUESTION:
In 1997 the average wage was around $37,000, it’s much higher now. Isn’t it the case that this is no longer affecting the rich, it’s affecting the middle class. Isn’t here a case given the sort of bracket creep that’s gone on to change the threshold?
DR NELSON:
We now have just over 45 per cent of Australians – that’s about nine and a half million Australians with private health insurance. That means that millions of Australians that would otherwise have had to rely on our already overstretched public hospitals now have private health insurance and are able to exercise choice whether to go to a private or to a public hospital.
The thing that is most important in this is to ask yourself the question: if I get sick, if my mother is ill, if one of my kids are injured or sick in any way, can I get them into hospital in Australia? Private health insurance provides an enormous amount of comfort to Australians who know in times of desperate need that they are able to use it.
The key thing here is that 10 years ago, before this policy was implemented, less than 30 per cent of Australians had private health insurance. Now we’ve got 45 per cent of Australians with private health insurance and that means that our hospitals that are so desperate, already with long hospital waiting lists, it means that you’re more likely to be able to get hospital care when you need it and your family wants it.
QUESTION:
Dr Nelson do you support any lifting of the threshold at all?
DR NELSON:
I think the current arrangements have been working very well. I think that the arrangements where people hit $100,000 if they’re a couple, or $50,000 if they’re a single, and saying to them well look if you don’t have private health insurance pay a bit more into Medicare to support our public hospitals. I think that’s a system that most Australians have supported. We know that it’s elevated the level of private health insurance in Australia and what we’re seeing at the moment is an ideological agenda which is being run by Labor.
What we’re seeing with this attack on private health insurance is real Labor. The last Labor Prime Minister of Australia, Mr Paul Keating proudly boasted he didn’t have private health insurance and he used to say to other Australians, pensioners and families and others who were struggling to pay for it, Mr Keating used to say you didn’t need it. Mr Keating used to say you were wasting your money having private health insurance. Now it seems that Mr Rudd is saying exactly the same thing in a different way. And he’s saying it in the cruelest way. What he’s saying is he’s falsely trying to make Australians think that in some way health care is going to be a bit easier by not having a Medicare surcharge until you hit $100,000 a year. In actual fact what he’s doing, he’s going to put more people into public hospital waiting lists, he’s going to put more pressure on public hospitals, have fewer people in private health insurance, and the pensioners and battlers of this country are now going to find that they will have to pay higher private health insurance premiums.
The next time you get you private health insurance bill, the next time you trying to get into a public hospital when you’re desperately ill or you need an operation and you find it’s even harder than it is today, just think of Mr Rudd.
QUESTION:
What do you see as the fallout – do you think premiums now are going to go up? Do you think fewer people, that people will actually pull out of health funds? What are you predicting?
DR NELSON:
There is absolutely no doubt that as a result of this fewer people will take up private health insurance. Less money will be coming in through the Medicare levy, we’ll have longer waiting lists and even poorer conditions in public hospitals and fewer people with private health insurance that will be able to exercise choice.
We should live in a country where it is affordable and reasonable for Australians, whether pensioners, working families or higher income people are able to exercise choice and if you aren’t going to take up private health insurance it’s more than reasonable to say well let’s put a bit more money into Medicare. Mr Rudd is quietly trying to deceive the Australian people with what is surely the cruelest con that we’ve seen so far.
QUESTION:
Why didn’t the Howard government raise the threshold?
DR NELSON:
We thought that the system was working quite well in the sense we’d got from 30 per cent of the population with private health insurance to just over 45 per cent of the private insurance.
The key objective with private health insurance is to make sure that people have choice of a public or a private hospital, that it’s also affordable and also to make sure that wherever possible we take the load off our public hospitals.
Basically it’s a question of supply and demand. If you want to get into a public hospital in Australia, if we can do something to get people out of the queue who might be able to afford to get into a private hospitals through private health insurance that has been the policy. It’s worked very well for 10 years.
What the real agenda here from Mr Rudd of course and real Labor is they do not like private health insurance in the same way they don’t like private education. They’re going to make it harder for people who stay in private health insurance and add to the burdens on our public hospitals.
I will be very interested by the way to see what our state premiers and state health ministers think about this policy because they’re the ones now with this pea and thimble trick that are going to find that their queues for public hospital care have just got a lot longer.
QUESTION:
[Inaudible] about choice though, isn’t it providing choice because it means more people are allowed to choose whether they want to take up private health insurance instead of being forced onto it when they might not be able to afford it?
DR NELSON:
The choice that this is going to give people is to actually put less into health care. The end result of this policy is that there will be less money going into the care of sick Australians in both the private and the public hospital system in Australia. That’s the choice that Mr Rudd’s giving them. And in fact what he’s doing is driving an ideological agenda which does not like private hospital care, does not like private health insurance. He’s gone back to the Keating agenda which basically says to people: don’t take up private health insurance, rely on the public hospital system, and what this effectively means is that a lot of Australians who currently have private health insurance, or are paying a higher Medicare levy to support our public hospitals, will actually be paying less. Less money for health care is bad for Australians who are sick and it’s bad for Australia.
QUESTION:
So is there an onus now on the Government, the Federal Government and the states to increase public health funding if this does, if this is announced next Tuesday?
DR NELSON:
The first thing we need to see is let’s see the analysis on this. We will be looking very, very carefully at the Budget papers when this is actually announced in terms of what the Government expects. But if Mr Rudd wants fewer people in private health insurance which is the cruel con that he’s putting into Australia the he has a responsibility to put a lot more money into Australia’s public hospitals as do our state governments.
I mean I’m standing outside the Royal North Shore Hospital here in Sydney. This is a hospital where a woman suffered the indignity of having a miscarriage in one of the toilets in the waiting room of the emergency department. I say to you Mr Rudd: not only come to this hospital, go to all of our public hospitals throughout Australia, look the doctors and the nurses in the eye and you tell them why fewer people in private health insurance and more people relying on public hospitals is going to help them. In other words the state governments and the Commonwealth Government is going to have to get the chequebook out on behalf of the taxpayer and put more money into our public hospitals just so they can tread water.
QUESTION:
Are you concerned about the inflationary effects of this potentially? I mean this is supposed to be a belt tightening Budget and yet it’s up to $1500 a year in the pockets of a lot of people.
DR NELSON:
What this is going to do, it means that if you are a pensioner, if you are a carer, if you are a retiree, if you are a family and you have private health insurance you are now going to pay more, because the financially fit who have been paying private health insurance to avoid a higher Medicare levy, they’ll be dropping out.
Fewer people in private health insurance means higher private health insurance premiums, that means higher inflation and it just confirms our view that Mr Swan doesn’t know what he’s doing and Mr Rudd is trying to deceive the Australian public.
QUESTION:
To what extent do you support the merger of the Liberal Party and the Country-National Party in Queensland?
DR NELSON:
That’s a matter for the organisational leadership of the Liberal and National parties in Queensland. There have been good faith negotiations that have been progressing in Queensland. My view is that there is merit in a federally led merger between our two parties, the Liberal and National parties. And the organisational leadership are involved in those discussions. I’ve got no further comment to make on it.
QUESTION:
But on a state basis does it have your support? The Liberal Party council’s given the green light last night.
DR NELSON:
The organisational leadership of the Liberal Party in Queensland and the National Party in Queensland, subject to their agreement and us looking at the detail, once I and my very senior federal colleagues are satisfied with it then I’ll let you know.
QUESTION:
And there’ll be a merger at a national level?
DR NELSON:
I can only restate what I’ve said before - I think that is merit in bringing the National and Liberal parties together at a federal level. It’s a matter for the organisational leadership but the single most important thing that’s important to Australians is being able to afford and to get hospital care when you need it, get groceries into your shopping trolley, petrol into your car and keep a roof over your head. And that’s the test that Mr Rudd is likely to fail this week.
QUESTION:
Where’s it at, at a federal level though, a merger?
DR NELSON:
I’ve got no further comment to make on it.
QUESTION:
Mr Nelson, overnight the AOC decided to allow our athletes competing in Beijing to be able to have freedom to express their opinion while they’re there to the media and be allowed to blog if they like. Do you welcome the decision?
DR NELSON:
That’s nothing less than plain common sense. Australia’s a democracy, we’re very proud of our sportsmen and women and I’m sure they’ll do us proud not only on the field but off the field when they go to Beijing.
One other issue, in relation to Burma, as every day passes the real extent from the limited reporting from Burma becomes even more apparent to us. This is a human disaster on an extraordinary scale which would be beyond the imagination of most of us as Australians. Australia’s commitment so far of $3 million to support the people of Burma is nothing short of pathetic. It’s only marginally more than Mr Rudd’s committed to the tree at Barcaldine and I think that the Government needs to significantly increase its preparedness to offer financial aid to the people of Burma. The United States has reportedly been looking at just dropping food and other supplies into the Burmese people directly. I think Mr Rudd should be talking directly to the United States and similar allies of Australia about being a part of the coalition of the willing to make sure that we get aid in to those people who desperately need it.
QUESTION:
What would be a more appropriate value of our aid to Burma?
DR NELSON:
Whatever that level of aid is, $3 million is a lot of money to those Australians who earned it, but it is nothing short of pathetic, bordering on insulting when the Australian Government offers that level of aid to a people who’ve suffered so much under military junta and now have to suffer in this way as a consequence of this appalling cyclone. I think that our country, given strong economic management over the last decade is in a strong economic position. We have our own financial challenges here at home but the real strength of us as Australians is the extent to which we reach out to other people in need. And I strongly urge Mr Rudd to dig deeper into his pocket and find just a bit more money for those Burmese people.
I also think that whilst it’s important to work with the United Nations and have a talk to Ban Ki-moon and the UN officials, all of that’s important. In the end the going is very, very tough. It’s extreme for the Burmese people and it’s time for us to get going. I think Mr Rudd should be talking to the senior US officials if not President Bush himself about how Australia being so well placed in this region can do a lot more than it already is to support the Burmese people. We need to get past the military junta to make sure these food and medical supplies get directly to the people who are dying.
QUESTION:
But isn’t it the case that most traditional major donor countries can’t get the money through, that’s why they’re not announcing big amounts of money. France has said that, the EU said that, Britain’s said that, America’s said they’d like to give more but it’s how the money, how it’s being distributed and the caps that are being put on by [inaudible]
DR NELSON:
Australia should be a leader, not a follower and Mr Rudd should at least announce an in principle sum of money that he’s prepared to commit on behalf of Australia and in addition to that we should be prepared to be a part of the coalition of the willing to make sure that we get past the junta and get food and medical supplies to the people of Burma who so desperately need it. There’s far too much bureaucracy and red tape in this world as it is, it’s time for action from Mr Rudd instead of words.
Thanks very much.