A politician? Engaging in some light misrepresentation? Not in my representative democracy.
Labor and Liberal are going head-to-head on health in the upcoming election, but neither party can seem to help themselves when it comes to a bit of political spin.
On Tuesday, opposition health spokesperson Senator Anne Ruston released a statement claiming that “damning” new data from the Department of Health and Aged Care showed GP bulk billing had gone “backwards in every single electorate across the country under Labor”.
The new data in question was DoHAC’s response to questions asked on notice during the November 2024 supplementary budget estimates.
It breaks down the total number of GP services, bulk-billed services and average patient contribution by electorate for the 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 financial years.
This actually offers a slightly less granular look than the publicly available Medicare statistics, which go down to a Statistical Area Level 3 level.
There are 358 SA3 regions in Australia, as opposed to 151 federal electorates.
“It is seriously concerning that Australians living in every single electorate across the country have had their access to free GP appointments sent backwards, particularly in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis,” Senator Ruston said.
“Less Australians are getting access to bulk billing under Labor, which means they are having to pay record high out-of-pocket costs to see a doctor because of this government’s mismanagement.”
Ms Ruston said some 94 electorates had seen bulk-billing rates fall by 10% or more since Labor took office.
While her words are technically true, she neglected to add the context that Labor came into power on the tail end of the covid vaccine rollout.
Related
All MBS covid vaccine support items were required to be bulk billed.
When former Prime Minister Scott Morrison left office in the 2022 financial year, GP non-referred bulk-billing rates were at the second-highest point on record, 88.3%.
Comparing artificially inflated bulk-billing rates to the current levels of bulk billing is somewhat misleading.
Taking a longer view, bulk-billing rates crashed to 80.2% in the 2022-23 financial year and fell to 77.3% the following year.
One could argue that this level was low even compared to the pre-pandemic bulk-billing rate, which had sat at around 85% since 2014.
But the long-term trends in policy or post-covid cost-of-living crisis combined with the Medicare rebate freeze saw practices struggling to cover increasing running costs on rebates that continued to lag behind inflation.
In this sense, it is again technically true to say that bulk billing has decreased under the Labor government, but only if one ignores the wider context.
On the other side of the aisle, Labor’s health team is also prone to the odd misleading statement.
This week, for instance, health minister Mark Butler and assistant health minister Emma McBride announced a $135 million investment into the Digital Mental Health Program.
Funding was awarded to 12 existing mental health services that offer telephone or online support services for various at-risk cohorts.
“Our significant investment will deliver high-quality free digital mental health supports for people from the city to the bush,” Ms McBride said.
“We’re strengthening Medicare by deliver [sic] better mental health services.”
The other big move Labor has made in the mental health space is the opening of 40 Medicare Mental Health Centres across the country.
What is slightly misleading about this language is that Medicare is not the funding body for either initiative.
The Medicare Benefits Scheme provides remuneration for specific consults and services, and funds specific initiatives like the Continence Aids Payment Scheme and the External Breast Prostheses Reimbursement Program.
Grant funding for initiatives like the digital health investment does not come out of the MBS bucket of money; it appears that this particular grant run was funded by DoHAC directly.
Contrary to their names, Medicare Mental Health Clinics are not funded by Medicare at all.
Instead, they are staffed by salaried workers who receive block funding from DoHAC administered via PHN.
Indeed, “Medicare” appears to have become a catch-all term for federally funded health programs.
This may be somewhat misleading to the average patient, who likely isn’t versed in the technicalities of the MBS, PBS and other funding mechanisms.
No date for the upcoming election has been called at time of writing.
A previous version of this story stated that government Medicare data was only available down to a Primary Health Network level; this was corrected on 20/02/25.
