By political correspondent Emma Griffiths
Tuesday 9 December 2014
Photo: Peter Dutton and Tony Abbott announce that the $7 GP co-payment has been dumped. (AAP: Lukas Coch)
Related Story: Government looking at 'different options' on GP co-payment
Related Story: Government to abandon $7 GP co-payment
The plan to charge patients an extra $7 GP fee has been scrapped by the Federal Government.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott has announced the contentious budget proposal will be dropped.
"There will be no change to bulk billing for children under 16, for pensioners, for veterans, for people in nursing homes and other aged care institutions," Mr Abbott said.
However, the Government is cutting the Medicare rebate paid to doctors by $5 a visit in a bid to address the "troublesome issue of six-minute medicine" and encourage doctors to spend more time with patients.
The cut means it will be left up to doctors to decide whether to make up the shortfall by charging what the Government has called an "optional co-payment".
"In the end, though, this is a question for the doctors, and what we're saying to the doctors is for adults who aren't on concession cards, we don't think it's unreasonable for you to charge a co-payment," Mr Abbott said.
"And what we want to do by legislation is enable them to directly claim the rebate, provided the co-payment they charge for that particular class of patients is $5 or less."
The Government also announced that to receive the standard rebate, consultations with doctors must be at least 10 minutes and that the level of rebate would be frozen over the forward estimates.
The $7 fee on visits to the doctor, pathology and diagnostic imaging services was announced in the budget and had been regarded as a "barnacle" stuck to the Government.
Mr Abbott told Coalition MPs late last month that he would be removing some "barnacles" from the Government before Christmas.
The patient contributions were touted at budget time as saving $3.5 billion over five years - savings that were to be invested into a Medicare Research Future Fund.
Mr Abbott said the new plan would result in the same amount of savings and the research fund will still be established.
Under the original proposal concession card holders and children under 16 would have been charged the co-payment for their first 10 visits each year.
Mr Abbott said the Government's Expenditure Review Committee had been "chewing over" this change for some weeks and it had been approved by Cabinet today.
The first version of the co-payment had failed to win over the required support in the Senate and had not yet reached parliament as legislation.
'Better package' still needs to pass Parliament
Mr Abbott said the new version will still require parliamentary approval but it is a "better package".
"Now we have better policy," he said.
"We had good policy in the first place ... we've got better policy now, and what we've seen here is, I think, an intelligent and sophisticated response from the Minister, from the ERC, from the Cabinet, from the Government more generally, to the quite reasonable observations of the backbench and the community and that's the glory of our system."
The Prime Minister's former adviser, public policy consultant Terry Barnes who initiated the co-payment idea, welcomed the change.
"GP co-pay plan B is much better than budget, balances fairness with sustainability. And it's close to my original proposal," he posted on Twitter.
The Palmer United Party, which had opposed the first co-payment, also welcomed the new proposal.
"Prime Minister Tony Abbott has succumbed to our rationale and dropped the co-payment," PUP leader Clive Palmer said in a statement.
However, it was not clear whether Mr Palmer supported the $5 cut to the rebate.
Mr Abbott has not ruled out launching a government advertising campaign on the changes, despite having to defend a recent campaign explaining the higher education overhaul.
