James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

The government has announced reforms to the prostheses list that aim to ease pressure on private health insurance premiums in 2017. These reforms include reducing the cost of certain devices on the list and reconstituting the Prostheses List Advisory Committee with specific instructions to work on developing a more robust and transparent price disclosure model, amongst other things. These reforms are based on the recommendations of an industry working group that comprised representatives of consumers, device manufacturers, private hospitals, insurers and clinicians. The proposed Senate inquiry would duplicate work that has already been undertaken by the working group and may risk delaying much-needed reform.