Abbott's Medicare cost of living pressure

Firstly, this is what Abbott said just days before the Sept election:

''I want to give people this absolute assurance: no cuts to education, no cuts to health, no changes to pensions and no changes to the GST.''

This is what's being recommended to him now by his ex-advisor Terry Barnes:

However, the report, obtained by Fairfax Media, shows the recommended co-payment is $6 and patients will not get 12 free visits a year. Instead, once they visit their GP more than 12 times in a year the government will start to pay the fee for them. It also says GPs may use their discretion to waive the co-payment on compassionate or financial grounds. Read more

This is what Terry Barnes thinks of his report:

''It's a modest and affordable solution to allowing access to a world-class general practice system,'' Mr Barnes said. Read more 

The gov has at present "no comment":

 On Sunday federal Health Minister Peter Dutton refused to end speculation that the proposal had the government's support, only saying he was committed to ensuring the health system was ''sustainable and accessible to the future''. Read more

Lovely. Obviously this Terry Barnes has no idea how much $6 is to a pensioner. Not that I'd think any doctor in his right mind would charge a pensioner anything. 

I wonder about who it'd effect though. A struggling family with both parents working who relies on free doctor visits for the whole family, isn't going to want to cough up anything. After all, it's all been handled by the Medicare levy until now. Why suddenly should people have to start co-paying when nothing has changed? The budget debt crisis only exists in the Lieberals imagination.

But no. This is the man Abbott who won the election harping on to the stupid about cost of living pressures that didn't exist factually. Blaming it all on the carbon tax of course. Well finally Abbott has found some actual facts to back up his "cost of living pressures" scary monster thing; he's invented his own.