AS last year came to its end, the federal government modified its deeply unpopular plans for a $7 Medicare co-payment, proposing instead a $5 cut to rebates and leaving it up to doctors to either charge patients for the shortfall or bear the loss of revenue themselves.
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The flurry of outcry from the medical profession was quickly lost in the fog of Christmas and the festive season.
In the cold, hard light of the new year, however, and subjected to the sharp scrutiny of one local doctor, the changes to Medicare now being implemented by the government could cause some severe side-effects, especially at the local level, where the very act of getting in to see a GP can be challenging in its own right.
According to Dr Michele Browne’s analysis, the changes could have severe repercussions and put strain on an already stretched public hospital. Dr Browne is determined to see the end-of-year announcement does not slip from public view and that locals are made aware they will be the ones picking up the cost and facing longer waiting times for appointments.
Presented as a compromise that was more compassionate than the initial $7 co-payment plan, the changes, according to Dr Browne, will extract the same amount from the general practice purse as the $7 co-payment would have. In other words, there’s no real difference and patients will be stung just the same.
GPs are at the front line of health care so placing additional burdens on them will, in Dr Browne’s reckoning (and that of the Australian Medical Association and the Rural Doctors Association of Australia), bring unwelcome consequences. And that means locals will suffer.
