Perth Voice Interactive

WITH three-quarters of Perth’s GP services bulk-billed, Labor MP Alannah MacTiernan says locals will be hit hard by the Abbott government’s $7 GP fee.

“Particularly with the elderly, the management that the GPs engage in really keeps people out of hospital,” she says.

A “tsunami of babies” in the electorate may also see young families struggle to cope.

“A lot of them are living fairly close to the wind,” she says. “It is going to make it hard for a number of people. People are really pissed off about this, they’re pissed off with the betrayal.

“This is undermining the principle of universal care, that your health should not be contingent on your wealth.”

On the ABC’s Bickerfest (aka Q&A), Treasurer Joe Hockey said $2 of the $7 fee was going straight to GPs and they could choose not to pass that cost onto struggling patients if they wished.

“What the GPs are telling me is they don’t reckon the $2 is going to cover their extra costs from having to collect the money,” Ms MacTiernan scoffed.

She says the clinic she visits on Beaufort Street appears absolutely flat tack and may need to hire a staffer just to manage collecting the fee and passing most of it back to the government.

“Now suddenly 74 per cent of presentations are going to involve a cash exchange. The idea that they’re going to have a windfall is nonsense.”

Ms MacTiernan likes the idea of the $20 billion medical research fund, but says “you don’t fund it by an unequal tax where the sicker you are the more you pay”.

by DAVID BELL