Labor will scrap Malcolm Turnbull’s cuts to medicines and GP visits, meaning the average Australian family with two healthy kids will pay $412 less a year for essential healthcare. [1]
We will ensure every Australian continues to have access to affordable medicines by reversing Malcolm Turnbull’s decision to hike out-of-pocket costs for medicines on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS).
Together with our commitment to end the Government’s GP Tax by stealth by ending the freeze on the Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS), this will protect universal healthcare for all Australians.
Reversing Malcolm Turnbull’s cuts to the PBS and MBS will particularly help Australians on low and fixed incomes, as well as those with chronic illnesses.
For example, a single pensioner aged over 65 who has heart disease will pay $270 less a year for medicines and visits to the GP under Labor.
Healthcare costs for a low-income single parent pensioner who has diabetes and two teenage kids will be around $450 lower as a result of reversing these cuts.
A pensioner couple aged over 65, one of whom has diagnosed dementia and the other has congestive heart failure, will pay around $60 less for their medicines and $500 less for their healthcare overall.
Under Malcolm Turnbull, every general patient will pay $5 more for each prescription of commonly used medicines that treat conditions like asthma, depression, high cholesterol, emphysema and nerve pain from diabetes.
Under Labor, they won’t.
The increases to PBS co-payments and safety net thresholds were first proposed in Tony Abbott’s horror 2014 Budget. Malcolm Turnbull took ownership of these cuts by building them into his first Budget.
Labor will not stand by and let Malcolm Turnbull and the Liberals dismantle universal healthcare.
We will ensure medicines are more affordable under Labor and ensure people aren’t priced out of seeing a GP because we believe good health is something all Australians should enjoy.
Read more about Labor’s positive plan to stop Malcolm Turnbull’s medicines price hike at: www.100positivepolicies.org.au/affordable_medicine_for_every_australian_fact_sheet
MONDAY, 23 MAY 2016
