Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

to fix the problem that you created, tell us what your plan is. Our plan, as the Minister for Health has made absolutely crystal clear, is to protect our great Medicare system. Not for nothing was I, as health minister, the best friend that Medicare has had. I will now give that title to the current health minister. But I want to be the best Prime Minister that Medicare has ever had. The way to do that is to work constructively with the health professionals and to work constructively with the Australian Medical Association. That is exactly what we are doing, to protect the vulnerable, to improve services to make our great Medicare system even better and to increase public hospital funding by nine per cent this year, nine per cent next year, nine per cent the year after that and eight per cent in the final year. That is what we are doing.

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