In less than two months in the election, the Albanes government announced a budget aimed at swinging voting.
title Health expenditure include :
- $ 8.5 billion To encourage more GP claims and train doctors and nurses
- $ 1.7 billion Public hospitals help to reduce the list of waiting.
- $ 664 million 50 more urgent treatment clinics will be established
- $ 689 million For patients who are not deadly, to lower the prescription price to $ 25
- $ 793 million In the case of women’s health, access to contraception, urinary tract infections and access to surrounding species and menopause.
The announcement was already strategically created last month to maximize the media reports and build election exercise.
Australian I want more access to affordable health care -The budget provides this to many people. However, it does not develop the health reform process necessary to ensure the long -term sustainability of the health system.
How is this compared to the previous health budget?
The budget includes large -scale health expenditures, but the significant amount was not strictly new, but it was already provided by the government.
As a result, the budget is assigned an additional $ 7.7 billion for health compared to the actual expenditure of 2024-25.
This increase is consistent with steady long -term spending over the past few years. This reflects a 6.6% increase in nominal spending (when inflation) is reflected, but the actual expenditure increased by 3.9% (when the inflation is turned off).
Real and estimated spending of health portfolio
treasury
The ratio of the budget spent on health can be considered historically low and is expected to be 15.9%for 2025-26.
It is not clear whether Australians are assigned more for their health, but they need more investment.
Will this health budget improve the health of Australians?
The Alvanes government is trying to kill three birds with one stone with this health budget. I would like to reduce the cost of living, improve health results, and win elections.
Lowering living expenses and improving health services Two most important Problems with this election. Headline health presentations directly solve these two problems.
But they also provide political benefits by moving the media spotlight from the opposition leader Peter Dutton. He could not legally present an attack headline health presentation. His popularity When he was a minister of health. Instead, He promised to match Some health presentations if elected.
Increasing the bulk billing rate and lowering the prescription price will directly reduce the cost of the Australian’s own burden. This is mainly for people without concession cards.
Increasing access to the emergency treatment clinic will help you reduce the cost of living because the service is provided free of charge.
Making health care for patients will improve your health results. Many Australians sometimes choose Do not access health care because of the costIt can lead to health results and expensive hospital management.
The size of health improvement depends on how patients respond to low health care.
More healthy benefits will go to patients who stay home and start watching GP rather than managing their own state.
Health benefits are reduced for patients who start watching GP instead of emergency room or emergency treatment clinic.
Is this a good health policy?
Every time the government spends money, there is a “opportunity cost”. Reducing the cost of living using a health budget means that there is little money to improve the health system elsewhere.
In this context, the health budget missed the opportunity to build a more sustainable health system.
Medicare is not the best way to fund the community care from GPS, nurses and combined medical service providers. It is a disorder for building team -based treatment in various fields. This includes limiting the type of service provided by the non -GP clinical trials, and does not support funds for sufficient nursing adjustment. People with chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease often suffer from cracks and hurts.
no way General practical incentive review Last year, we recommended the transition to a new funding model submitted to the Health Bureau. This may include a funding model for the bundle of the service provided with the team, not the fee for all the services provided by each team member.
But payment reform is very difficult. Medicare has not been changed since 1984, which was first introduced.
The budget allocated $ 7.9 billion in mass claims, and $ 2.4 billion was in progress, and the budget missed the opportunity to start the payment reform process. This additional funds will strengthen the current payment structure and can be used as a leverage for obtaining GPS through a line for Medicare reform.
The government also missed the opportunity to start health manpower reform. an Independent reviewIn addition, we tried to improve access to primary care submitted last year, improve medical quality, and improve human resource productivity.
This explained 18 recommendations for 18 recommendations, including payment reform, to remove the barriers to enhance the access to medical care provided by multi -field doctors, nurses, and combined medical service providers, such as psychologists and physical therapists.
Again, there was no suggestion that this budget would be pursued in 2025-26.
What happens next?
The following depends on the party that usually wins the election.
In this case, Dutton has I agreed to match Health budget spending on mass claims and PBS script price cut. But the Union did not promise 50 more emergency treatment clinics.
Whatever the party, our health system The world’s best.
Read more: at a glance: 2025 Federal budget
