Television interview with Minister Butler, Sunrise – 31 October 2025

NATALIE BARR, HOST: Major changes to bulk bill GP visits will come into effect tomorrow with all Australians and Medicare cardholders to be made eligible under a new program meant to incentivise practices to bulk bill everyone. But private practices warn the extra federal funding is still not enough to make ends meet, which has put the government's ambitious pledge to have nine out of ten GP consultations bulk billed by the end of the decade in doubt.
 
For their take, let's bring in the man at the centre of all this, Health Minister Mark Butler and Liberal Senator Jane Hume. Good morning to both of you. Mark, so doctors are warning that out-of-pocket costs for patients who can't bulk bill will likely rise. How are you going to stop that?
 
MARK BUTLER, MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGEING, MINISTER FOR DISABILITY AND THE NDIS: First of all, Nat, can I say what a terrible story to follow and all of our thoughts are with Ben's family and the Ferntree Gully community right now. But look, tomorrow will be a red-letter day for Medicare. We've got new drugs coming onto the PBS, new services for women that will be bulk billed who want to use long-acting contraceptives that will save them hundreds and hundreds of dollars. But this investment in bulk billing is the biggest ever in the history of Medicare. And already a thousand practices have told us that today they're charging gap fees and on Monday they'll be fully bulk billing every single patient that comes through their door. Those patients will just have to bring this beautiful little green card with them, not their credit card. And we know more and more practices are joining this program every single day. Because bulk billing is really the beating heart of Medicare. There's nothing more important for us. We've calculated these funds very, very carefully. We know three quarters of practices will be better off. Individual doctors will be tens and tens of thousands of dollars better off if they move to fully bulk billing. But most importantly of all, patients will be better off.
 
BARR: Well, so nine out of ten, that's in five years. So if I, you know, if someone who earns a million dollars, are they going to be able to be bulk billed? Virtually everyone in the country is going to be bulk billed in the next few years. Is that actually achievable?
 
BUTLER: Millionaires don't come into the 90 per cent. I'd be very surprised if Gina Rinehart gets bulk billed. But we're really focused on people in that middle income -
 
BARR: But she can. Are you saying she can? If Gina wants to walk in, she can?
 
BUTLER: They can theoretically.
 
BARR: I’m serious.
 
BUTLER: They can theoretically. But we're focused not on the billionaires, we're focused on people who don't have a concession card. That cuts out at about $40,000 a year for a single. That's not big income. And we know that those people increasingly are finding it very hard to afford to go to the doctor, very hard to fill all of their scripts and that's why that community has been such a focus of our bulk billing policy and our cheaper medicine.
 
BARR: And that's fair enough. You can imagine people on lower incomes, they should be bulk billed. But are you saying everyone in the middle, nine out of ten Australians, will be bulk billed?
 
BUTLER: That's our focus. We've never made any apology for bulk billing being at the centre of Medicare. We fought it in the 1980s. We know the Liberal Party opposed it. The doctor’ groups opposed it. But for us, people pay their Medicare levy. Medicare is not some private service, it's a public service funded through taxpayers by the government for patients.
 
BARR: Yeah, it just seems a really hard thing to do. Like, it could be amazing.
 
BUTLER: That's what we think we should get to. People with a concession card, their bulk billing rate is 92 per cent. But if you don't have that card, that concession card, bulk billing has been sliding because of the funding freeze over the last decade.
 
BARR: Oh, yeah, we know.
 
BUTLER: We've got no more important goal than turning that around.
 
BARR: Okay, Jane, look, doctors say Medicare has been frozen for a decade. You were in for a lot of that. Years of chronic underfunding, you guys were in for a lot of that. They're too scared, a lot of them, to put a lot of their resources into being government funded. Do you think this is going to work?
 
SENATOR JANE HUME: Nat, let me first say that I want to echo Mark's sentiment towards the family of Ben Austin. What a terrible tragedy that was. And as a Victorian Senator, can I just say that my heart and my thoughts go out to Ben's family, to his club and his community.
 
On the issue of Medicare bulk billing, the problem is we've seen a collapse in bulk billing, specifically under Labor. It was up as high as 88 per cent under the Coalition and now it's down around 77 per cent. What Mark is offering simply isn't good enough for those GPs that are, let's face it, small businesses. They've seen that their costs go up, their rents have gone up, their energy costs have gone up, their technology costs have gone up, and they are saying that they're not going to be able to survive under Mark's regime.
 
Now, the problem, of course, is that means that we'll have fewer GPs in the system, that doctors that are being trained right now will say, well, I don't want to be a GP because I'm not going to make any money out of it, and we'll see GPs retreat from the system. It's going to become harder to see a doctor. So Mark and his Prime Minister can wander around with a green card all they like, but at the moment it's about $50 on average out-of-pocket costs to go to a GP and that hasn't changed.
 
BARR: Yes, that's a good point, Mark. If you go to the doctor and you're not in a bulk billed practice, doctors' fees, doctors' costs are going up with electricity and all their practice costs. A lot of doctors say that fee is going to have to increase for the non-bulk billed people. Can you stop that? Because their costs are going up and you're not giving them any more for those people who aren't bulk billed.
 
BUTLER: We are. We've delivered the three biggest annual increases to the Medicare rebate since Paul Keating was Prime Minister. The first, the second and third biggest in in 30 years, as well as this massive bulk billing investment. A GP who is a full-time, fully bulk billing GP in our cities will from next week be earning $405,000 a year after they pay their practice costs. Two years ago they were earning $280,000 a year -
 
BARR: But non-bulk billed.
 
BUTLER: That’s well over $100,000, no, if they're a fully bulk billing doctor. We've changed the dial so that it's now in the interest of GPs to fully bulk bill. Now, not everyone will. We never pretended that everyone will, but already a thousand practices on Monday will be bulk billing when today they're charging a gap fee and that's terrific for patients.
 
BARR: Okay, well, look, we'll track it because that would be amazing if you could just walk in and you didn't have to pay the gap.
 
HUME: Good luck.
 
BARR: Australians will be cheering so we'll be tracking it. Thank you very much both of you. We'll see you next week.