Nicola Roxon (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I present the draft Health Insurance (Assistive Reproductive Technologies) Determination 2009. These are draft determinations that affect the debate on IVF. They have been requested by the opposition and the minor parties. They are being provided as a draft as the final regulations cannot be presented until the Health Insurance Amendment (Extended Medicare Safety Net) Bill 2009 is passed. They do, however, have all of the details that the opposition parties have been seeking and I think that they will assist the debate in the Senate on the extended Medicare safety net measures.

Importantly, I advise the House that the reason that they have not been tabled before now is that the final meeting with the medical profession and patient group Access was conducted on Thursday. There have been finalisations between the Department of Health and Ageing and the Department of Finance and Deregulation to ensure that the measures as they have been negotiated are within the funding allocation and will achieve the same level of savings as was announced in the 2009-10 budget. Importantly, of course, the new structure shows that patients charged at the average and median fee for a typical cycle will not be worse off as a result of this measure. In fact, many patients will receive higher MBS rebates. I hope that these draft determinations will now enable the passage of the bill in the Senate.