Voters want improvements to Medicare and the health system. More than 13% of respondents to The Conversation’s #SetTheAgenda poll said health was one of the issues having the greatest impact on their life right now. Cost of living pressures were also a key concern.
As one respondent said, candidates should be talking about “increasing Medicare rebates to reduce gap payments” as they compete for votes, while another saw improving “rural and regional access to high quality care” as the key issue.
So what have the major parties committed to? And is this enough? We asked five experts to analyse and grade the major parties’ Medicare policies – from A for top marks to F for a failed effort.
Here are their detailed responses:
Jim Gillespie, Associate Professor in Health Policy, Menzies Centre for Health Policy & Sydney School of Public Health, University of Sydney; Lesley Russell, Adjunct Associate Professor, Menzies Centre for Health Policy, University of Sydney; Richard Norman, Associate Professor in Health Economics, Curtin University; Rosemary V Calder, Professor, Health Policy, Victoria University, and Stephen Duckett, Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice, The University of Melbourne
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