How to reduce Medicare costs - ACOSS

The Australian Council of Social Services has taken up Abbott's challenge. The other day when trying to defend the $20 cut to the Medicare rebate, Abbott challenged people to come up with some other way to save money if the Medicare cuts were the wrong thing to do. I suspect it was more out of exasperation and arrogance that he said it, however that hasn't stopped ACOSS from coming up with intelligent suggestions totaling around $10billion a year. 

They also mention that costs are rising but Medicare is hardly in any kind of funding crisis. Indeed if the gov went the way of Americanising our health system the costs would be significantly more. Not the least of reasons being that preventative medicine is always better than trying to patch someone up in hospital. 

"The Prime Minister has asked for alternatives to the government's proposals for the Health Budget. ACOSS welcomes the invitation. Our proposals are grounded in evidence and would improve the effectiveness of government spending in improving health outcomes for the greatest number of people. 

"We urge the government to: 

1. Abolish of the wasteful Private Health Insurance Rebate altogether. The PHI rebate has failed in its promise to increase private health insurance and take pressure off public hospitals. It disproportionately benefits people on higher incomes who can afford private cover in the first place, and has been a significant factor in driving up costs without any evident gain in achieving its initial policy intent. We estimate that this alone would save around $6.6 billion, rising to nearly $7b in in 2016-17. 

2. Abolish the Extended Medicare Safety Net. This is another poorly targeted subsidy that has failed to adequately assist in reducing out-of-pocket costs for the public. In fact it may have increased the costs of particular medical procedures. This subsidy costs us around $400 million dollars a year. 

3. Overhaul ineffective industry subsidies including in the PBS with an initial saving of almost $2billion to reduce the cost of out of patent prescription medicines. Simply introducing single pricing mechanisms, or accelerating these reforms in other ways, can deliver significant further savings. ACOSS has proposed alternatives that would provide a $1.8 billion dollar saving in this area in the next final year, increasing to $2 billion in 2016-17. more