Senate debates

Wednesday, 15 October 2008

Tax Laws Amendment (Medicare Levy Surcharge Thresholds) Bill (No. 2) 2008

In Committee

6:18 pm

Photo of Rachel SiewertRachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

If people want to take out private health insurance or not, that is their choice. What is happening now is that people are being required to take out private health insurance. So those that are choosing have no choice as to whether they want to take out private health insurance. Senator Cormann says that people have a right to take out private health insurance. That is fine—at the moment we are subsidising that, and people who cannot really afford private health insurance are subsidising private health insurance.

We do not believe that public money that could be assisting those people to directly get treatment under the public system should be used to subsidise those that are able to make a choice to take out private health insurance. I will say it again: we would prefer the money that Australia is pouring into the coffers of the private health insurance industry go directly into the public health system so that everybody gets a fair share of the services of the medical treatment in this country.

There is no denying that there are poorer health outcomes for those on lower incomes. We do not believe that is fair in the so-called ‘lucky country’. We believe that that money should be directly helping those low-income people. We do not believe it should be poured into the coffers of the private health insurance industry. That is the basis of our policy. We make no apologies for it and it has been our policy since the previous government introduced these changes. We have been very vocal in our opposition to the rebate and the public subsidy that goes so heavily into the private health insurance industry. People deserve a choice—that is fine—but what this does is to force people into the system. They have no choice. That is not fair.

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