Another day, another day of Australians being warned about the crisis in Medicare.
On Thursday the ABC reported that yet more regional communities would lose their bulk-billing doctor because of the collapse of health provider Tristar, which owned 29 regional practices, now in voluntary administration. Ten clinics will close because Tristar failed to find a buyer. They include those at Ararat, Dandenong, Avoca (Victoria), Kempsey (NSW) and Palmerston (NT).
Such places are representative of an Australia that is already in danger of being left behind as political alliances cohere more and more around the wealth, social standing and self-regard of voters.
It is melancholy to contemplate that Labor, the party that gave Australians universal healthcare, seems to have no real answers to the continuing slide in bulk-billing.
Yes, there is the Strengthening Medicare Taskforce. Its findings are expected by the end of the year. Health Minister Mark Butler points to the $750m ”Strengthening Medicare fund”.
In the midst of all this strengthening, there is weakness all around. Labor, despite the many challenges on the general economic front, can do better than that with its signature reform to Australian healthcare.
The government reimburses doctors $39 for a 20-minute consultation. Disgracefully the fee was frozen under the Coalition from 2013 to 2019. It is now indexed 1.6%, or 65c extra, for a standard consultation.
Karen Price, president of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, says rebates need to increase at least 10%. Her call does not display the showmanship of Albo waving around a gold coin to support a rise in the minimum wage, but it should be answered.
Ambulance ride aside, our first interaction with the health system for most of our complaints is the GP clinic. These soulless waiting rooms with hard seats and the endless loop of loud commercial TV with bad subtitles are actually places of beauty. From those soulless spaces, the lives of rich and poor will be turned around for the better.
Tristar Medical website proudly proclaims ”All Clinics are predominantly Bulk Billing”. Not any more.
Labor could have said the same in 1984. Not any more.
Mark Sawyer is a journalist with extensive experience in print and digital media in Sydney, Melbourne and rural Australia.