One Nation will strengthen Medicare, with a focus on combatting fraud, as part of its plan to put more money in Australians\u2019 pockets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Party leader Senator Pauline Hanson said the Medicare system was being rorted by up to $3 billion a year \u2013 resources better directed towards lifting bulk-billing rates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhen the Independent Review of Medicare Integrity and Compliance was released in April 2023, we learned Medicare was being rorted by up to $3 billion a year,\u201d Senator Hanson said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere have been many examples of people using other people\u2019s Medicare cards, doctors\u2019 appointments being used to obtain cheap PBS-funded medicines which are then sold on the black market here and overseas for big profits, and even doctors falsely claiming funding for appointments they did not have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cA lot of this could be prevented by requiring photo ID on our Medicare cards \u2013 this is our policy \u2013 and by ensuring Medicare is sufficiently resourced to ensure GPs are remunerated sufficiently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cLike so many other small businesses in Australia, GPs are facing much higher operating costs \u2013 rents, rates, insurance, energy bills \u2013 and this is reducing bulk-billing rates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These rates fell from 51.7% to 47.7% last financial year, with the average out-of-pocket cost rising to $45 per appointment. Almost 9% of patients either delayed their appointments or just didn\u2019t go because of these out-of-pocket costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe must have a hard look at increasing the Medicare rebate and better remunerate GPs to prevent their exit from the system. Australia is potentially looking at a shortfall of more than 10,000 GPs by the start of the next decade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFixing Medicare and cracking down on fraud is part of our plan to slash government waste by $90 billion, putting $40 billion more in Australians\u2019 pockets, paying down government debt and investing in Australia\u2019s future.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One Nation will strengthen Medicare, with a focus on combatting fraud, as part of its plan to put more money in Australians\u2019 pockets. Party leader Senator Pauline Hanson said the Medicare system was being rorted by up to $3 billion a year \u2013 resources better directed towards lifting bulk-billing rates. \u201cWhen the Independent Review of … Continue reading “One Nation will strengthen Medicare and combat fraud”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31308"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31308\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31309,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31308\/revisions\/31309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}