Since replacing the bumbling Peter Dutton as health minister, Sussan Ley has managed to clean up much of his mess, particularly on the GP co-payment issue.
Ley has spent the four months she’s been in the job consulting with the health sector on efficiencies in primary health care, something that Dutton failed to do prior to announcing the co-payment, or its failed revamp last December.
Today, she announced a Medicare overhaul that includes establishing a Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) Review Taskforce to conduct a line-by-line assessment of the current, 5000+ MBS list, a Primary Health Care Advisory Group to advise on ways to better integrate management of primary and acute care around chronic illness and mental health, and more integrity measures aimed at the small number of health professionals who abuse the current system.
There’s a little hypocrisy in the measures targeting practitioner integrity, given the Coalition refused to support Labor’s efforts to crack down on rorting by practitioners of dental and chronic disease management programs. And “better care for people with complex and chronic illness… and greater connection between primary health care and hospital care” is in essence motherhood within the health sector.
Nonetheless, Ley’s consultation-heavy approach has reversed a lot of the damage done by Dutton in his fortunately brief stay in the portfolio, and should set the stage for more efficiency in the sector.
If only the government, in its eagerness to strip the states of billions in funding, hadn’t walked away from the similar process on acute care that was put in place by the Gillard government in its agreement with the states on hospital funding.
Ley presents as a working Minister either Party would value. Four month’s in and her consultative approach begins to build community confidence. But let’s not forget . . . the Minister is a ‘Mohican’ and her real test awaits her in the Cabinet, if she is to succeed.
Oral health appears to have been downgraded for decades. Teeth and mouth health often leads to more complications later on ?
I am cynical enough to believe that this is just a ‘cost-cutting’ exercise by Ms Ley. Or at least, that is what the rAbbott, Hockey and the cabinet have in mind.
Ley will prove just as useless as Dutton over the short to medium term. It is the whole government that is rotten to the core, so I have no positive expectations of any Ley achievement.
Dare I say that a woman’s approach to the problems may have been instructive in this example. Consult, identify the problems and perhaps come up with some policy to improve the bang for the buck.
Don’t want to sound to down on men, being one myself, but it sure beats the bull-in-a-china-shop approach that has been shown by Dutton, Abbott, Hockey, Brandis etc.
The value of a female voice in the government cannot be under-estimated. It is most valuable in examples where men’s voices and egos overwhelm all others.
But before you label me a man-hater, the reverse is just as true. It’s just that women-dominated boards and cabinets are much harder to find.
I hope that Ley proves to be a good Minister but this still sounds like someone given the job of destroying public health provisions. Fingers crossed.