Radio interview with Minister Butler and Mark Gibson – ABC Perth Breakfast – 24 February 2025

MARK GIBSON, HOST: Labor is calling it the biggest single investment in Medicare since its inception. A policy costing $8.5 billion over four years, promising nine out of ten GP visits, will be free for patients by 2030. In a policy quickly matched by the Opposition. But will it actually make it cheaper for you to see the GP? I'd love to get your thoughts this morning. Mark Butler is the Federal Health Minister, he was with the Prime Minister making this announcement yesterday, and he joins me now. Morning, Minister.
 
MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGED CARE, MARK BUTLER: Morning Gibbo. How are you?
 
GIBSON: Well, thank you. I think the big question has to be, you know, you can announce all this stuff and you can try to make these changes, but will it actually mean that more GPs end up bulk billing, or do they still have the choice not to?
 
BUTLER: They have the choice not to, but they won't get the extra money. That's the really important thing. This additional funding, as you said, the biggest investment in Medicare in its 40-year history is tied to outcomes for patients. There has been an incentive paid to doctors to bulk bill pensioners and concession card holders for a long time – we tripled that incentive a year or so ago. And that has made a big difference to bulk billing rates for that group of Australians. But for the first time, we're extending that same bulk billing funding to all Australians, because I'm particularly concerned about bulk billing rates for middle Australia, that group of Australians who don't have access to a concession card, who are seeing their bulk billing rates really slide and their out-of-pocket payments increase a lot. We've calculated this very carefully. We've done the modelling. We know that the vast bulk of practices would be better off under the record funding we announced yesterday.
 
GIBSON: What about WA, where bulk billing rates have been declining and have been amongst the worst in the nation? I think the last report we covered not too long ago was 6.2 per cent of GP clinics are bulk billing in WA, that's not much.
 
BUTLER: They're not very reliable figures. Those figures come from a private company, from a pretty random phone survey. We publish the definitive data on bulk billing on a quarterly basis out of the government. We started doing that a couple of years ago. And that shows that WA bulk billing rates are lower than other states in the east, but they're still in the order of 65 per cent or thereabouts. There is a challenge there, particularly for those people who don't have a concession card, which is why we're putting such a big amount of money into turning those bulk billing rates around. It's not just a question of people's hip pocket, as important as that is. But we know that more and more Australians are saying they're not going to the doctor when they need to because of cost. This is also an important health measure. We want people to go to the GP when they need to, because if they don't, they probably just end up getting sicker and ultimately needing more expensive treatment down the road, even at a hospital emergency department. This is not just a hip pocket measure. It's also an important health measure.
 
GIBSON: As to be expected, a fairly mixed reaction from listeners on the text line so far. This kind of sums up a little bit of the cynicism, though. This person says, “it's amazing how deeply both sides of politics care about health care, schools, and lowering taxes five minutes out from an election.” Minister, why can't you go to the Parliament and try to bring this in sooner? Why do we have to wait till November?
 
BUTLER: First of all, I think that's a little unfair. We've been working hard since we were elected to turn Medicare around. We tripled the bulk billing incentive for pensioners and children the year before last, and that has delivered hundreds of thousands of additional free visits to the doctor last year in WA, and millions across the country. We've rolled out 87 Urgent Care Clinics, they've seen 1.2 million patients who need urgent care, but don't need to go to a hospital emergency department. Every single one of them has been bulk billed. And we've made medicines cheaper as well. We have been working hard. Yes, this is the latest announcement, but it comes on top of very substantial efforts by our government to turn Medicare around after a decade of cuts and neglect. And in terms of Parliament, I think you're referring to what Peter Dutton said yesterday, that we should recall the Parliament to legislate this. Well, that's sort of weird. He should know as a former Health Minister, you don't need legislation to do what we announced yesterday. We'll simply put it through the usual process of yearly changes to Medicare that happen on the 1st of November.
 
GIBSON: It's a lot of money. Where did you find $8.5 billion floating around?
 
BUTLER: The vast bulk of it was provisioned in the Mid-Year Budget that we announced in December. Let's be really honest, for a Labor Government that created Medicare and has defended it for 40 years, there's no higher priority than delivering high-quality health care to everyone, no matter what their means, no matter what their income. The idea that bulk billing is sliding, out-of-pocket costs are rising, and more Australians are choosing not to go to the doctor because of cost is not one that we're just going to sit back and watch. We are going to act and that's what we did yesterday.
 
GIBSON: Just finally, how confident are you? It's alright to throw out these sort of aspirational targets, I suppose. But nine out of ten GP visits to be bulk billed. So, you know, free GP visits for Australians by 2030. How confident are you of achieving that?
 
BUTLER: I'd like to see it earlier. And that's pretty conservative modelling. As I said, all the new money kicks in on the 1st of November, so there's no reason why general practices can't change their operations pretty quickly. We model this very carefully. We know what GPs are charging out there and we get all that data. Our modelling shows that for the majority of practices, this is a better outcome than charging people gap fees. It will be more profitable for them to become fully bulk billing practices, with the triple bulk billing incentive available to all Australians, and a new payment that we've created for practices that bulk bill all of their patients. This is something that will be in the interest of doctors, as much as it is for patients.
 
GIBSON: Thank you for your time, Minister.
 
BUTLER: Thanks, Mark.