Apologies for the rant. The Abbott Government have no idea when it comes to health policy. They seem to just make things up as they go along without actually asking anyone who works in health. As a salaried hospital doctor I have no financial stake at all in the proposed cuts to medicare GP rebates and co-payments. But I do see patients in hospital with severe and often life threatening illness. Often these illnesses could have been averted had they seen their GP earlier. It is hard enough to convince these patients to see their GP regularly, increasing the cost of seeing the GP will just kill off any chance at all. The Government says pensioners/kids/health care card holders will be exempt. What about the middle aged working class male? The exact kind of patient that waits till he is near death before seeing the doctor will now wait just a little bit longer. So yes, the GP co payments will probably reduce the amount of GP visits. Is this a good thing? I guess we can always divert the savings to hospital beds.....at least my job prospects will be more secure.
Posted on: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 02:41:45 +0000
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