TRANSCRIPT
Interview with Gary Hardgrave, 4BC
19 November 2024
Topics: New data shows Australians are avoiding essential healthcare because they just can’t afford it, Labor’s cost-of-living crisis, energy prices, the GP bulk billing rate
E&OE…………………………………
Gary Hardgrave: According to the ABS, 11% of people in the lower socioeconomic areas went without their prescribed medication due to financial pressures in 23-24, compared to the year before. Thank you very much, Mr. Albanese. Thank you so very much, dim Jim Chalmers. That was almost double the rate of people living in wealthier areas. We're a lucky country. This is disgusting. It is awful. Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care is Senator Anne Ruston. She's a great Australian. Great to talk to you, Senator. This is awful. How does this happen? Why is this happening? How are we going to fix it?
Anne Ruston: Well, I mean, I think you've probably pointed out why it's happening, is that we've got a cost-of-living crisis. I mean, when it comes to the healthcare sector, it's never been harder or more expensive to see a doctor.
But the underlying problem is that people have got so little left in their pocket at the end of the week, they're having to make decisions as to whether they fill their script, whether they go to the doctor or whether they put food on the table. And that should not be happening in Australia. And it's all because we have had massive inflation, wasteful government spending and people's real wages have been going backwards. Basically, people have got less money in their pocket and they're acting as a result of it by not filling their prescriptions.
Gary Hardgrave: But this is awful. Making decisions that, frankly, could lead to even more health problems for them, delaying treatment to things, denying themselves those basic things. It's bad enough when I start to hear about 1 in 3 Australians don't have the food they really need on their table every day. I mean, these sorts of things, that's just disgusting. It's awful.
Anne Ruston: It's quite catastrophic because, as you rightly point out, if you intervene early when you start to feel sick or unwell or have a have an injury, you can often head it off quite quickly and quite cheaply. But if you leave it for a period of time, it often gets much worse and you have to end up at a hospital. This is why we are seeing so many people ramping and in hospital ramps, because they haven't gone to the doctor early enough or haven't sought the medical treatment early enough. And, you know, it was pretty horrific the statistic you just read out, about the 11% increase in the number of people who are going without medication. Last year, 1.2 million Australians said that they avoided going to see the doctor because they couldn't afford to go. That's 1.2 million Australians who potentially are much sicker now and much more likely to end up in a hospital.
Gary Hardgrave: And the Government focusing on renewable energy, I believe, is at the heart of why costs are going up. Because basically everything relies on electricity for distribution, for manufacturing, you name it, the cost of food going up, heating, eating, all of these things are all caught up with electricity prices. It's blown out by $500 billion. Australians simply can't afford basic health care as a result of the price of electricity going up and up and up.
Anne Ruston: Well, in a country that's as resource rich as Australia, it is an absolute disgrace that we have got some of the highest energy bills in the world, and it's because of the ill-founded policies that we've seen under this government. Their refusal to be agnostic about source and actually just think about the affordability and the reliability of the power to Australians. Because we know it's not just people in their own home. I mean, businesses are being hit with high power bills, which means the prices of their products go up. You know, it means running your supermarket freezers are costing you a whole heap more, manufacturing is costing you a whole heap more. As you rightly point out, the flow on effect of high energy costs is having a significant impact on Australia, and it's a really fundamental part of the cost-of-living crisis that we're living through at the moment.
Gary Hardgrave: The thing that upsets me, Anne Ruston, is that when I was in the Parliament, across my electorate, southern outskirts of Brisbane, we had about 85% bulk billing available across general practitioners. Tony Abbott was an excellent Health Minister. I hope you will be one as well. But you know, we had a huge commitment to bulk billing. The cost of running a practice goes up. Doctors have to get contributions from people. I think my doctor's now charging $35 as a co-contribution. I pay that because he's a great doctor and I want to get his advice on anything and everything. But things have really changed in the last 15 or 16 or 18 years. It's gone backwards, and I keep pinning it down to the rising cost of everything because electricity has gone up. It's crazy I'm talking to a Shadow Health Minister about the price of electricity, but it's a real problem.
Anne Ruston: Look. It absolutely is. And I think you probably should count yourself lucky if you're only paying $35 out of pocket costs for going to see your GP. We've had situations where people have told us they're paying $150 to go and see a GP, because it's simply that hard.
But you know, GPs like everybody else are being hit with the cost of living. They've got to pay their power bills, they've got to pay increased wage bills, you know, all of the costs. You know, if they've got loans, they're obviously being impacted by the high cash rates at the moment and interest rates. So, GPs are small businesses like any other business and they're impacted by the same challenges that every other business is facing.
But, you know, you rightly point out, under the Coalition Government, we inherited a bulk billing rate in the low 80s. We took it up to 88.8% under Greg Hunt. So it steadily rose through Tony Abbott and Peter Dutton, right the way through to Greg Hunt until we got to 88.8%. In the first year and a half of this government, they dropped that bulk billing rate to 75.6%, and they're now crowing about the fact that it's gone up 1%. It's still 11% less than when we left government. So there is some really fundamental problems with our health system and the Government's got some big questions to answer, and they can't keep on covering this up and pretending it's not happening, because Australians are feeling it in their pocket.
Gary Hardgrave: If we fast forward 6 or 7 months, a federal election behind us and Peter Dutton becomes Prime Minister, things start to change. You could be his Health Minister. That's what is likely. You're going to inherit a problem in a system that's now going to have more cost factors in it. You're going to end up with a health system where people may be are sicker than they should be, because they've put off care now. This is going to be an extra large cost to the Australian taxpayer.
Anne Ruston: Well, I think there are a couple of things there. First and foremost, we have to stop wasteful government spending. We need to get inflation down, we need to get people's real wages up, so we can holt the demise of our health care system because people are having to behave like this because they can't afford to see their doctor.
The second thing is that we've got to start focusing on prevention and early intervention. We've got to start incentivising people and showing them the value of looking after their health because, you know, doing really healthy things, eating healthily, exercising and doing all those sort of things won't just make you physically healthier, it will actually make your mental health a whole heap better.
So we need to have a two pronged attack here. We need to stop the cost-of-living challenges that are causing people's health to deteriorate. But at the same time, we have to give them the resources and the information so that they can live healthier lifestyles simply by their own actions. So, it's a twofold thing. It's a big challenge. Make no mistake about that.
Gary Hardgrave: You know, as I said, you're going to inherit this, Anne Ruston and, you know, I think it would keep me awake at night thinking about it. But the mortgage stress, the stress of prices of electricity, the price of food. As my wife keeps saying, she's become stronger in the last couple of years - She can lift $200 worth of groceries with one arm. I mean, you know, you just know on every corner, everything is just going up and up and up and wages will never be able to keep up with it. But this is causing stress and strain on so many fronts in so many ways. I keep pointing the finger at electricity. We have to give people some sense that there's a better day ahead. What are you going to do? How do you shape a policy that actually delivers a better result for both Medicare and indeed public health in general?
Anne Ruston: Well, as I said, you've got to come up with policies that address all areas of the challenges in the health care system. You can't just fix one place, because if you fix one place, it'll just end up ending up somewhere else. So, we need to take a holistic approach to our entire care sector.
The biggest issue before us at the moment in the health care sector, or in the care sector, is workforce. No one can find a doctor. No one can find a nurse. No one can find, you know, a physio or occupational therapist. So we need to deal with workforce. This government has completely ignored workforce. They've talked about a whole heap of solutions, but they're not worth the paper they are written on if you haven't got the workforce to deliver it. So the first place we need to go is how are we going to get more health professionals out there, so that the demands of the public are able to be met, so when people actually ring up and want to go to see a doctor or need to go to a hospital, there actually are the staff there to see them when they need them, and not having people wait for months and months. In the case of mental health, they could be waiting seriously a year to be able to get in and see a health professional, and the consequences of that sometimes are absolutely catastrophic.
Gary Hardgrave: And we're a rich country. I just can't believe we're even having this discussion in so many ways. But great to take to you, Anne Ruston. Look after yourself. Thank you for your time.
Anne Ruston: You too, thanks Gary.
ENDS
@Anne_Ruston
/AnneRuston