Health Costs Eat Into Tax Cuts

The shocking increases in health costs in the last few months are just the latest cost of living rises eating into Treasurer Peter Costello's tax handback Senator Trish Crossin says.

"Figures released last week by Tony Abbott show an 18 per cent rise since just last December in the out of pocket cost to see a GP' Senator Crossin said.

"The average out of pocket cost to see a GP rose from $14.24 to $16.75 nationally.

"In addition to the rises in GP costs and health insurance, the cost of seeing a specialist rose 28 per cent since December 2005.

"Territorians are especially hit hard given the difficulty of even seeing a GP given we have the lowest per capita ratio of GPs.

"There was nothing new in the Federal Budget to address the doctor shortage in the Territory.

"The Australian Bureau of Statistics Household Expenditure Survey shows the biggest increase in costs for families is for medical care and health expenses, especially health practitioners' fees.

"The Federal Government's Strengthening Medicare program designed to raise bulk billing rates was listed in the budget to end in 2008-9 as there are no funding allocated to it beyond next financial year.

"Compared to other areas of expenditure in the budget Health is falling behind with overall government expenditure increasing faster than Health.

"I am still waiting for the results of the Health Department's review of the whole Rural, Remote, and Metropolitan Areas (RRMA) classification system for allocating subsidies to attract doctors to under serviced areas.

"Darwin in particular suffered under its unfair classification but the system has been frozen while under review' Senator Trish Crossin said.

2006-05-16