Interview with Natalie Barr - Sunrise, Channel 7
NATALIE BARR, HOST: The government has revealed that more than a million pensioners will be affected by a policy to scrap private health insurance rebates for over-65s. Four states are demanding Labor rethink its plan, fearing it will add pressure to the public health system. And while government modelling suggests only 44,000 older Australians will drop their private health cover, insurer Medibank says that figure is understated, estimating 91,000 will shift to the public system.
Let’s bring in Employment Minister Amanda Rishworth and Nationals Senate Leader Bridget McKenzie. Morning to both of you. Amanda, you've got the nation's largest private health insurer saying a whole lot more people are actually going to drop their cover because of this policy than you estimated. Do you trust you've got the numbers right?
AMANDA RISHWORTH, MINISTER FOR EMPLOYMENT AND WORKPLACE RELATIONS: Well, firstly, if we think about this decision, Nat, it was a difficult decision, but an important decision. And the reason for that is that we need to be very resourceful with where we spend taxpayers' money. And if we look at- particularly for older Australians, the demand is increasing for aged care, and we need to respond to it. And that's why this budget had an extra $3 billion in for aged care for more Home Care Packages, and that’s really important.
The other point I would make is we're not scrapping a rebate. Older Australians and younger Australians still have access to a rebate based on their income and still can get a maximum of 24 per cent rebate. That's really important. But this is a difficult decision, but one that we must do so that we can invest in the very significantly growing demand for aged care.
NATALIE BARR: Okay, so hang on, are you scrapping the over-65 rebate?
AMANDA RISHWORTH: There is an extra percentage on top of the rebate, but there is still a rebate for private health insurance. It is just the same for everyone whether you're older or whether you're younger.
NATALIE BARR: So how much will they lose?
AMANDA RISHWORTH: People are still getting a rebate. I think that's important.
NATALIE BARR: Yeah, okay. So how much will the over-65s lose …
AMANDA RISHWORTH: Well, look, there’s been a range of …
NATALIE BARR: …roughly?
AMANDA RISHWORTH: Well, it's- there's a range of amounts depending on what level your plan is.
NATALIE BARR: Ballpark?
AMANDA RISHWORTH: We've obviously got estimates, it's very hard because there's a big range of plans. But what we've got is we still think that and the model suggests that private health insurance take-up will still grow. There will be a modest impact of people that might not take up private health insurance. But making sure pensioners can get a home care package is critically important. We've seen a tripling of the demand for home care packages since 2020. We need to respond to that. That requires important budget decisions, and this is one of them where we think we can better support older Australians.
NATALIE BARR: Yeah, look, no one is arguing that home care packages need to increase. But it feels like we're arguing apples with oranges because we've now got the biggest private health company in Australia saying this is double the number are going to drop it than you think.
Bridget, let's go to you. The government says it needs to cut somewhere. They need to fund aged care. What would you have done?
BRIDGET MCKENZIE, NATIONALS SENATE LEADER: Well, Nat, we wouldn't have an energy policy that's seeing us have to spend over $7.7 billion, saving local jobs here in our industrial base.
NATALIE BARR: But on the healthcare …
BRIDGET MCKENZIE: Just for starters.
NATALIE BARR: Yeah, okay.
BRIDGET MCKENZIE: No, but Nat, you've got to look at the federal budget as a whole, and they're all about decisions. So I don't think it should be a trade-off between home care packages for older Australians and private health insurance for older Australians. The appalling thing that the government has done once again is made a decision based on ideology. They hate private health insurance, so they've said we're cutting that without doing the actual modelling on the impact. And it's had to come out in a Senate inquiry, modelling- they've been forced to finally model the figures to find out 1.2 million older Australians are going to be impacted.
Now, the worst thing that we could see is people who've been on private health insurance for decades so that they can stay at their package as they enter old age for those hip replacements, knee replacements that we're all going to need. only to find a government ripping out the rug under them. And premiers today are furious, even Amanda's own premier, because they're going to all flood into the public system now and clog up waiting lists. That's literally what's going to happen.
NATALIE BARR: Yeah. Amanda let's go back to you. If you don't know how much this is going to cost those people on the pension who've got private health and may drop it, how do you know they're not going to drop it?
BRIDGET MCKENZIE: That's right.
AMANDA RISHWORTH: Well, firstly, there would be estimates done. I can't give you any individual pensioner
BRIDGET MCKENZIE: You haven't done the work.
NATALIE BARR: So there are estimates?
BRIDGET MCKENZIE: You're saying it's 0.4 per cent.
NATALIE BARR: Hang on, Bridget. Let's just answer that.
AMANDA RISHWORTH: I cannot tell you what every single pensioner and the type of package they're on. What we're saying is this will have a modest impact on those that drop out, about 0.4 per cent, and we still expect to see private health insurance take-up continue. But Bridget, you haven’t explained where you would fund that tripling demand in when it comes to aged care packages. This is really important for pensioners as well …
BRIDGET MCKENZIE: Yes I have, Amanda.
AMANDA RISHWORTH: Making sure they can get help when they need it in their home so they're not forced to go into an aged care facility. That's really important. We've put an extra $3 billion in the budget. Of course, premiers have wanted to see that as well, and I'm assuming they'll welcome that extra investment in aged care.
NATALIE BARR: Okay, so Bridget, just clarifying where you would find that money? From electricity?
BRIDGET MCKENZIE: As I said, across the budget, there are a variety of decisions, including scrapping net zero, and then you would not be needing to subsidise- keeping billions of dollars, Nat, to subsidise jobs onshore because energy prices are out of control.
AMANDA RISHWORTH: I think your nuclear power plants are going to cost a bit more than that.
BRIDGET MCKENZIE: You know, Amanda, you didn't even model the impact of this policy, just like you didn't model the impact of your negative gearing changes, your capital gains tax changes, so I could go on.
NATALIE BARR: Well, Bridget, you guys were accused of not modelling nuclear power too, so there we go- at the last election. So that was a problem too.
Okay, I think we’ll leave it there. Thank you very much.