"Stop the freeze" on Medicare rebates - petition

The AMA cites the ever increasing gap

The announcement by the Turnbull gov that there would still be bulk billing on pathology tests is but a small crumb in their swathe of Medicare cuts. A token gesture in an attempt to placate voter rage at election time. 


Another much bigger cut are the cut's to Medicare rebates for seeing your GP. Already these rebates have been frozen for 4 years (three of them under the Abbott/Turnbull gov I note). Now the gov wants to freeze them for another 4 years. How can any business entity absorb an 8 year freeze like that? Doctors will have no choice but to introduce a co-payment for seeing them instead of bulk billing.

This nit picking Scrooge mentality is going on in plain sight of corporations in Australia paying no tax at all. Not a single cent.

Please sign this petition to end the freeze on Medicare rebates. 

It was announced in the budget last night that the freeze on Medicare rebates, commenced in 2012, will be continued until 2020. This means the rebate your GP receives when they choose to bulk bill you has not increased in four years and will not increase for four more. 

In that time, just like everywhere, their costs have increased. They still have to pay their nurses, their receptionists, their phone bills and the rents for their offices. 

Medicare is YOUR universal health insurance. It is YOUR rebate. Do not let the government destroy it. 

By freezing the medicare rebate the government is directly attacking those services that care for the disadvantaged which rely solely on the Medicare rebate - such as aboriginal health services and those that care for the poor. Tell Turnbull to find his balls here.  

Likely we're just barking at the Lieberal moon, but you never know with a tight election as it is :)