Four days out from the 21 May 2022 federal general election Liberal MP for Kooyong & Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg announced that after the election a Morrison Government would continue applying the knife to funding of federal government services to the tune of $3.3 billion.
A total of $2.7 billion will be returning to the Treasury coffers by way of across the board annual savings it expects from increasing the current 1.5 per cent efficiency savings requirement to 2 per cent over the next three years.
The Guardian quoted Prime Minister Morrison on 17 May 2022: “That is something that I think is entirely sensible and, frankly, taxpayers would be demanding, that these types of sensible efficiencies are achieved and that is part of the process of managing a good budget,” the prime minister said while campaigning in Darwin on Tuesday. “It doesn’t impact on programs or services at all. It never has.”
According to Prime Minister Morrison and the Treasurer this increased cost cutting by way of efficiency dividends does not apply to the National Disability Insurance Agency, Safe Work Australia, Emergency Management Australia, the National Recovery and Resilience Agency, the ABC, the SBS, or small entities with fewer than 200 staff.
However it does appears to include in Morrison's own words "management of staffing arrangements" over the next three years.
On 17 May ABC News reported that: Prime Minister Scott Morrison was asked what agencies would be forced to tighten their belts and whether, given his praise for the public service over the way it helped Australians during the pandemic, it was a "mean spirited" way of rewarding people for their hard work.
"This is responsible budgetary management. We've made commitments in this election and we ensure that we pay for them," he said.
"That's how you manage your budget, you live within your means."
So where will this $3.3 billion be coming from? Especially the est. $600 million in savings which appears to stand outside three years of efficiency dividend savings.
It isn't hard to imagine that Scott Morrison, with another three years in front of him before having to face the national electorate again will return to his perennial favourites - further reducing the actual number of staff or hours worked in government departments and agencies by starving them of real funding increases, as well as further restricting eligibility for social service/welfare programs and removing more treatment items from Medicare rebates/bulkbilling & from the universal free public hospital system.
Individuals and families are already impacted by changes to eligibility and/or rebates for an estimated 188 cardiac surgery, 150 general surgery, 594 orthopaedic items, including hip, shoulder, hand & cardiac surgeries and a number of diagnostic imaging procedures.
According to National Seniors Australia by 1 June 2021; Nine procedures have been deleted from the MBS entirely, and other changes may include tweaking the definitions of certain services.
Then there is the possibility of sudden removal of bulkbilling or enhanced bulking billing for certain specialist consultations,
such as the one playing out right now in a mental health program which inordinately impacts on regional and remote Australia.
ABC News, 16 May 2022:
…..Psychiatrists say the Medicare cut has forced hundreds of patients to cancel or scale back their appointments, leading to the worst outcomes for patients some say they have ever seen.
Ms Pomeroy from Mackay had seen her psychiatrist on an almost monthly basis for the last three years for chronic anxiety and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
But like other patients across rural and regional Australia, she said she was sprung with the news she would no longer have access to bulk-billed psychiatry appointments over telehealth.
"I went into shock," she said.
"It put me in a tailspin where I thought, 'What am I going to do now?'"
'It's almost like Noah's ark'
In January, a 50 per cent loading — known as item 288 — for psychiatrist video consultations for rural and regional patients was cut from the Medical Benefits Scheme (MBS).
The ABC understands about 45,000 patients claimed the item across 2020-21.
Brisbane-based psychiatrist Dr Bawani Marsden said the last five months had been devastating for patients as psychiatrists were left to choose who, if anyone, they could bulk-bill without the extra loading.
"It's almost like Noah's ark where you're deciding who you want to take with you and who you don't mind sinking and drowning," he said.
The option to bulk-bill patients remains. But without the extra loading, practices say it is unviable to provide to everyone.
A rebate for patients was still available, but Dr Marsden said about half of her rural and regional patients had cancelled because they now could not afford care.
"Almost a decade we've had that support and within a couple of weeks there was an announcement that it's going to be removed," she said.
"We're talking about a peak time here, we're coming out of COVID … and they've taken away a lifeline."…..
Credentialed mental health nurse Michelle Eastwell shakes her head.
"For our patients, it's gone from this seamless, private, de-stigmatised way of accessing mental health services to now … 'what's available?'" she said……
the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) has campaigned against the move and said the taskforce recommended finding an alternative solution which had not been done.
"We have put forward a number of solutions including a bulk-billing incentive … for people with affordability issues," said RANZCP's president Associate Professor Vinay Makra.
"Some of our patients are the most vulnerable in society and the government must look at that vulnerability factor."
"If they do not receive that support from a psychiatrist … some will become unwell, and needing admissions to hospital [would] put additional impost on health and hospital systems that are already stressed."
Labor has pledged to reintroduce Item 288 if it gets elected on 21 May 2022.
In March 2022 it was reported that the Morrison Government is considering removing nursing home residents' access to professionally trained allied health services as a way of reducing Medicare costs.
In a media release on 17 May 2022 the ACTU estimated that the announced cost cutting would result in the loss of 5,500 public service jobs.
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