Coalition refuses to say which health bodies it would cut - The Guardian

The Coalition has declined to nominate which health bodies it would cut to make good on its promise to redirect money to “frontline” health services without changing overall funding for the portfolio over the next four years.

In a debate at the National Press Club with the health minister, Tanya Plibersek, the shadow health minister, Peter Dutton, said Labor was “spending $1bn extra” on health bureaucracy and the Coalition would make no overall cuts, but would “redirect money that is not being spent efficiently to frontline services”. He refused to name which health administration bodies would be abolished.

The Coalition has sought to neutralise health as an election issue and Dutton said the Coalition and Labor “shared many similar ideas” about health policy and reiterated the Coalition’s promise to match Labor’s funding over the next four years.

Plibersek said that promise was not good enough because Labor was implementing long-term changes with additional funding promised well beyond the next four years.

“Our commitment is $20bn extra by 2020 … just committing to the forward estimates is not good enough. We need to hear a commitment by the opposition to the $20bn extra out to 2020,” she said.

Plibersek argued Labor had “rebuilt” the health system over its six years in office and had ended with a “stronger, smarter, fairer health system … with more doctors, more nurses, more allied health services and more beds”.

Dutton said he agreed with many things Labor had done, including the change to pay hospitals an “efficient price” for each patient service they delivered and the devolving of more decision-making to hospitals themselves.

But he said Labor had failed to efficiently deliver the changes, citing the slow introduction of electronic health records and GP super-clinics, which the Coalition has promised to “review”.

“Let’s not sugarcoat what has happened over the past six years,” Dutton said. “Tanya’s predecessor [former health minister Nicola Roxon] described Kevin Rudd as dysfunctional … the government had enormous goodwill for what it was trying to do … but in the end it has delivered missed opportunities.”

Labor is attacking Tony Abbott’s promise in his election launch speech on Sunday to remove the means test and “fully restore” the private health insurance rebate by the end of the decade.

Over the first three years, means-testing the private health insurance rebate saved $2.4bn and it is calculated to save $12bn over the decade. Some subsequent changes to indexation of the rebate are forecast to deliver another $8.8bn in savings over the next decade.

The Coalition has not said when during the next decade it would remove the means test on the rebate or how it would pay for the savings it would forgo from doing so.

Dutton pledged to make no change to the arrangements and subsidies for the abortion drug RU486 and said there would also be no change to the Medicare funding of abortions.

Labor has based its election attack on the allegation the Coalition intends to make big cuts to health spending, but the Coalition says this is a lie.