SENATOR THE HON KATY GALLAGHER
SENATOR FOR THE ACT
MINISTER FINANCE
MINISTER FOR WOMEN
MINISTER FOR THE PUBLIC SERVICE
MINISTER FOR GOVERNMENT SERVICES
REGION CANBERRA
$25 million promise to fix Canberra's low bulk-billing rates, high out-of-pocket costs
There’s been a lot of discussion about the ACT hospital system recently including the pressure hospitals are under in meeting demand and the funding needed to support these services.
Whilst the hospital funding discussion is an important one and one which the Commonwealth Government has acknowledged with an increase of $50 million for ACT public hospitals flowing from July 1, it can’t be seen in isolation of the broader ACT health system pressures which affect access and affordability of health care here in the ACT.
These pressures are not unique to the ACT and have not appeared overnight.
Unfortunately, a decade of neglect to Medicare under the former Liberal/National Governments will take time to fix. In our first term we made progress to pull Medicare back from the brink and in this term, we will work to continue to strengthen the system with an $8 billion investment into Medicare.
For Canberrans the problems accessing health care are most obvious in the primary care system and despite efforts over the years to improve access and affordability, most notably through the very popular walk-in centre model, bulk-billed GP care in the ACT continues to underperform every other jurisdiction and out of pocket costs are often the highest in the country.
It’s for all these reasons that Federal Labor made local commitments specifically for the ACT which will start to roll out over the next 12 months.
The data for bulk-billing for the December 2024 quarter shows the ACT with the lowest bulk-billing rates in the country at 52.7 per cent compared to 77.4 per cent nationally.
When we look at the percentage of under 16-year-olds who were bulk-billed, only 66.9 per cent of presentations were bulk-billed against a national average of 89.8 per cent.
We don’t need the data to tell us (although the data confirms it) that out of pocket costs are higher here in the ACT than other States, except in a few instances where the Northern Territory and Tasmania pip us as the most expensive jurisdictions in certain categories, confirming that small jurisdictions face structural challenges around workforce and scale that is not unique to the ACT.
For the shortest GP consultation, the average out of pocket cost nationally is $30.03, in the ACT it is $33.91. For a standard consultation, the average out of pocket cost nationally is $42.46, in the ACT it is $46.83.
With all this data my colleagues Alicia Payne, Andrew Leigh, Dave Smith and I worked with the Health Minister Mark Butler on designing a $25 million response to help address problems in the primary care system that have not shifted for some time.
The package will fund the establishment of three new fully bulk-billing GP clinics across Canberra with a requirement to bring new doctors to Canberra to staff them. It will fund the ongoing operations of the Interchange Health Co-Op in Tuggeranong and it will provide an additional $10 million to increase the capacity for respite care beds in the ACT.
There will also be a new Urgent Care Centre established in Woden and new workforce incentives to attract more GPs to come and work in the ACT.
This is a comprehensive package to respond to the problems facing the ACT primary care system and will work in partnership with the massive $8.5 billion investment the Albanese Government is providing to strengthen Medicare and increase bulk-billing rates across Australia.
