Transcript: Interview with Nikolai Beilharz, ABC Adelaide Drive - 13 January 2025

TRANSCRIPT

Interview with Nikolai Beilharz, ABC Adelaide Drive

13 January 2025

Topics: Cleanbill 2025 Blue Report, collapse in bulk billing under Labor, increasing healthcare costs, GP workforce crisis  

E&OE…………………………………

NIKOLAI BEILHARZ: We're talking about the rates of bulk billing appointments here in Australia. Mark Butler is with us, the Minister for Health and Aged Care. Also with us, Senator Anne Ruston, the Shadow Minister. Anne Ruston, thank you for your time this afternoon.
 
SENATOR ANNE RUSTON: My pleasure. Thanks, Nikolai.
 
BEILHARZ: So you've heard Mark Butler there say, well, look, you've got to look at the overall number of Medicare appointments overall, not just ring a clinic and say do you bulk bill everyone. Does that have a point that you've got to look at the data in its entirety?  
 
RUSTON: Well, you do have to look at the data in its entirety, but the same story is being told by the Department of Health. The same story is being told by the Health of the Nation Report from the RACGP, that we have seen a significant drop in bulk billing rates under the watch of this government. In fact, the reality is that [the drop] was up to 12 per cent. Mark Butler is somehow claiming some great achievement because he's got it back to 11 per cent. I mean, the facts speak for themselves. But the people that we really need to be asking are the Australians out there who are seeing very little improvement, if any improvement at all, after seeing a catastrophic collapse in bulk billing, a catastrophic increase in out-of-pocket expenses under this government.
 
But what I'd say is that let's stop the spin. Let's look at the facts, and let's start addressing the issues that are facing Australians at the moment, because Australians are hurting at a time right now and they need some help while they're struggling. But I also would take some level of offence to the fact that the Minister is happy to flat out lie to your listeners. I mean, he just made the comment that the freezing of the indexation happened under Peter Dutton. It did not. It happened under Tanya Plibersek, who was the Health Minister in the previous Labor Government. He also made the comment that bulk billing was free falling when he came into government. The free falling started under this government. Now I don't want to go for a he-said she-said. That does not help Australians, hardworking Australians out there who are struggling to pay to go to the doctor or are struggling to get an appointment. And I want to work constructively to make sure Australians do that. But I also want to make sure that we have the facts on the table and we're telling the truth.
 
BEILHARZ: So what would you do?
 
RUSTON: Well, I think the first thing we need to do is we need to be honest about what really is happening out there. Australians are really struggling with health care. It's never been harder or more expensive to see a doctor, as you rightly point out. People are avoiding going to the doctor because they say they can't afford to. And what ends up happening is they get sicker and then they end up having to turn up to emergency departments because their situation gets critical. And that's why we're seeing ramping and our hospitals in the state that they are at the moment. So I think we need to be honest about where we are at the moment and then actually look constructively about how are we going to address that.

And we clearly, there is one really big issue that everybody is avoiding talking about and that is the crisis in workforce. We simply do not have enough doctors. We know that we need probably another 8,000 doctors in Australia to meet the demand that we're going to need over the next few years. And we just simply are not seeing enough of our medical graduates choosing to become general practitioners. They're choosing other specialities in medicine. And I think the most important thing that we need to do now, if we really are going to make a change and get people to be able to get access and affordable access to the doctor, we need to have the doctors there so that they actually, when they ring up, they can get an appointment.

ENDS

tags:  news feature