PRICE:
Thanks for your time Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning Steve.
PRICE:
Look if you had to summarise it, what actually are you trying to do here?
PRIME MINISTER:
We're trying to stop the decline in bulk billing based upon the other availability and shortage of doctors in particular parts of the country. And we've taken the opportunity to provide some additional safety nets for Australians families in relation to what you might call unexpected surges in health expenses.
PRICE:
So you're confident those safety nets are still there?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we're adding two additional safety nets. The first is that for the first time since the introduction of Medicare of 19 years ago it will be possible for a family to take out an insurance policy and that family needn't now have private health insurance, for about $50 a year to cover that family for any out of pocket expenses and that includes not only a visit to the GP but also any other out of hospital expenses that are more than $1,000 in any one year.
PRICE:
So it really amounts to $1,050 which given that that gives you unlimited access to the doctor is not a bad amount.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it's a terrific new product this, because a person who, an average family now that is not being bulk billed, and there are millions of families in that situation as bulk billing has never been universally available, I mean anybody can access it depending on whether their doctor makes it available or not but if you had a family now that doesn't have bulk billing this new product will of enormous additional comfort. Now that family might now have private health insurance, well they can just add this product to their existing policy, or if they don't have it they for the first time will say gee this is not a bad idea, it's only $1 a week and I can insure my family against unexpectedly large health expenses during the year. And I think that will give a lot of peace of mind to a lot of people. So it's one of the new elements of the policy and I think it will prove very attractive to average families once the understanding of it works its way through the community. I think the other great advantage for that particular family, same family, they're now going to a doctor that doesn't bulk bill, they might have to pay say $35 or $40 for the consultation and then Mum or Dad has got to queue up in the Medicare office during their lunch hour to get the refund. Under what we are now proposing is that you'll only have to hand over the difference between the Medicare rebate and the doctor's charge and that would be $10 or $15, also hand over your card, your card gets swiped in the doctor's surgery and you're off and that's it. And the swiping of the card automatically credits to the doctor's account the Medicare rebate.
PRICE:
Now a lot of people have said to me that they really are grateful that they don't have to queue up at Medicare anymore.
PRIME MINISTER:
Those two things together, I mean if you're asking me what's in this package for the average Australian family that is not earning a, is not on a very low income but a family who's got a reasonable income but not well off and that's most, certainly a hell of a lot of people, got a couple of children, goes through as we all do with young children go through periods of high expense, I think these two things that I've just described are of enormous benefit.
PRICE:
Well you've built a lot of your support on backing middle Australia, I mean you're not saying to middle Australia here that it's going to be harder, more expensive...
PRIME MINISTER:
No it's going to be easier and we're also, it's certainly going to be cheaper upfront, it's going to be easier because you don't have to fill out all those forms and queue up at the Medicare office and we're also going to give you through this new health insurance product the opportunity to get a new safety net that will cover you against exceptionally high medical expenses and it's not just the difference between the Medicare rebate and what the doctor charges you, but if you have to go and get tests, if you have to go and get pathology and other tests they also mount up and you'll be able to cover against them as well with this insurance policy.
PRICE:
I think there's a fair bit of hysteria about this today, your critics are saying you're creating two types of health system, you're following the American style and that people are going to be worse off. You're relying a lot here on doctors, do you have them onside to make this work?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I think different doctors will react differently Steve. There's no one organisation in this country that any more can say it speaks totally for all doctors. Doctors who now don't bulk bill at all, they may, some of them may come back into bulk billing for pensioners and card holders. I would imagine that in country areas you'll get some doctors who now don't bulk bill at all commence bulk billing and I certainly believe that in country areas doctors who are thinking of ending bulk billing will see the incentive that is attractive enough to stay in bulk billing. I think as to the rest who have a mixture of bulk billing and ordinary charging, I think they will continue very much as they are now and they will benefit because they'll get incentives for the people they bulk bill and in relation to the rest they will be a lot happier because their upfront costs will be lower. So I myself think this will, when it's fully understood and it works its way through the community and middle Australia understands the two benefits that I've described, I think they will find it pretty attractive and I think over time a significant number of doctors will opt into this new scheme. I want to make the point that that direct billing system is only available if your doctor is (inaudible) bulk bill pensioners and healthcard holders.
PRICE:
Which is an encouragement for them to get into that. Prime Minister, how are you going to convince the Opposition? I mean they're suggesting this is the end of the world and your dismantling Medicare, I mean that means the chances of getting this package through unchanged through the Senate are pretty minimal isn't it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it's not the end of Medicare, I mean I know the Opposition has got to oppose it and they feel they've got to always be different, if I may say so with respect that's one of the problems of the current Opposition, they feel that they must oppose every single thing the Government puts up. I think we'll have to wait and see for the legislation to go to the Senate before you'll know exactly where, particularly the minor parties and the independents sit. The Labor Party is quite absurd and fearmongering when it says this is the beginning of the end of Medicare, I mean it can't be, Medicare is built on two things, free treatment in a public hospital and the universal availability of the Medicare rebate when you go to a doctor. Now neither of those two things is in any way disturbed, in fact both of them have been enhanced by announcements that I've made both yesterday and last week, the latter in relation to increasing funding for public hospitals by 17 per cent in real terms over the next five years. So there's nothing in this package that in any way undermines Medicare and people who are running around saying that should just take a breath and examine what's in it.
PRICE:
Well we had the Telegraph this morning before they changed their frontpage to look at this Pan pharmaceutical story, which I'll ask you about in a moment, briefly "Medicare's death throes, battling families face the end of bulk billing."
PRIME MINISTER:
Well if the Telegraph was doing that it is just completely and utterly wrong, perhaps they changed their headline for more than a greater preference for the Pan pharmaceutical story. But I mean for anybody to suggest that this of Medicare, how can something be the end of Medicare when it's putting almost $1 billion over four years extra into it? How can it be the end of Medicare if the two great principles of Medicare have been strengthened and reinforced and enhanced by the changes? I mean how can that, I mean I know we have to have political hyperbole and I know all of us from time to time exaggerate but when you're dealing with something as fundamental as this...
PRICE:
And that paper goes to every country town in New South Wales.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I mean I didn't see that, I've seen the early edition which deals with the largest ever drug recall but it is just absurd of anybody to say that this is the end of Medicare and I did read the editorial in the Telegraph and it was a lot more moderate than that headline you suggested.
PRICE:
Pan pharmaceutical's, as you say, the biggest recall in history, it really knocks the confidence of people who rely on these products.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it's very disturbing, that's the bad part of it, the good part of it is the system has worked. And the agency and the Government has acted very quickly and I want to congratulate the TGA and Trish Worth, the Parliamentary Secretary for the...
PRICE:
So you're happy with the gap between where they had this problem in January and now?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well you have to follow procedure, you have to prove, you have to have proper grounds otherwise you can be in all sorts of bother because if you get something like this wrong you can be up for enormous bills for compensation and everything because you're destroying unjustly a company's business. I mean the damage done to the reputation of a company by something like this is enormous.
PRICE:
Do you take any of those natural health products?
PRIME MINISTER:
Occasionally, not very often.
PRICE:
You rely on your walking rather than...
PRIME MINISTER:
My walking's far better than anything I'd ever take...
PRICE:
Just as I let you go, you're going to Texas at the weekend to meet with President George W. Bush. What do you expect to come out of that meeting?
PRIME MINISTER:
We'll talk a lot about the immediate future for Iraq, but I suspect we'll also talk a great deal about out own region, that is the Asia-Pacific region and also quite a bit about the prospects for a Trade Agreement, Free Trade Agreement between Australia and the United States. There's no link between the Free Trade Agreement and our participation in Iraq, I want to make it very clear that we've always kept trade and national security policies separate. We didn't go into Iraq to buy favour in a Free Trade negotiation, we went into Iraq because we thought it was the right thing to do.
PRICE:
Doesn't do any harm though?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I think we have a reasonable prospect, I don't want to put it any higher than that, in relation to the Free Trade Agreement, I think it is going to be very tough but the point I do want to emphasise to your listeners is that America will become an increasingly important country to Australia, not a less important country as the years go by because in relative terms, economically and otherwise, America is getting stronger. America is not marking time, America's getting stronger and one of the reasons why I've been a strong advocate of a Free Trade Agreement is that in the years ahead to have a deeper economic link with an even stronger United States of America will be of enormous benefit to Australia. So it's for our longer term future and you know many years into the future I think we'll get the true dividends of that Trade Agreement if we can pull it off.
PRICE:
Just finally given that Robert Hill's been in Baghdad and now in Qatar have you made yet a decision on when our troops will come back out of Iraq?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well there will be some coming home next month, two of the ships will be home next month and I would expect the Air Force units to come home next month and also many of the SAS. I expect the Kanimbla will come home in June, and the rest will stay a little longer but we'll review their continuation in Iraq on a regular basis.
PRICE:
Thanks for your time.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
[ends]