Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health Administration) Share this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a further supplementary question. When the Minister seeks further advice from the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs will he also ask him to explain to the Minister for Health and Ageing why he has increased the rebate for cataract surgery? Doesn’t this increase in cataract surgery rebates on the DVA schedule shoot to pieces the health minister’s argument that a massive 50 per cent cut in MBS rebates, on top of previous cuts of 30 per cent and 10 per cent, was justified because the procedure was now so ‘quick and easy’ to perform? Given the cut in patient rebates is now clearly exclusively targeted at the many thousands of mostly elderly patients accessing cataract surgery through the private health system every year, does the government now concede that this is nothing more and nothing less than another strike against patients in its ideological crusade against private health?