Arabic version: مجلس الشيوخ يعرقل تغييرات على خصومات التأمين الصحي الخاص
According to ABC News, controversial changes to private health insurance rebates for older Australians have effectively been thrown out of parliament after the Greens, Coalition and independent senator Jacqui Lambie backed a motion to remove the bill from the parliamentary agenda. The legislation can no longer continue through the Senate in its current form.
The proposal would have wound back the private health cover rebate for Australians aged 65 and over from April next year. The government said the measure would save $3 billion over four years for spending elsewhere in the aged care sector. About $1.6 billion of forecast savings would have been clawed back from pensioners, according to an ABC report last month.
Health Minister Mark Butler said the government would introduce the exact same legislation to parliament on Thursday. He called the outcome an “absolute travesty” and said parliament needed a proper debate about hard choices required to fund aged care services. The government had been relying on Greens support after the Coalition vowed to block the bill in the Senate.
Shadow Health Minister Anne Ruston said Mr Butler should “take the hint” and drop the measure. Greens leader David Shoebridge said his party supported reducing private health rebates but would not support cuts affecting pensioners, and would back the legislation if pensioners were exempt. Senator Lambie said older Australians were already paying heavily for private health insurance.
The policy has also drawn criticism from states and territories, the aged care sector, the private health industry and crossbenchers, who argued it could add pressure to the public system. Mr Butler had said 44,000 people would drop private cover, but health department analysis released under Freedom of Information laws forecast a cumulative 78,000 by the end of the decade. Council on the Ageing chief executive Patricia Sparrow urged the government to consider concerns from older Australians before pursuing future changes.
