Labor pitches $8.5bn plan to massively boost bulk-billing, in bid to make sure ‘no one is left behind’

The federal Labor government is pledging a historic $8.5 billion boost to Medicare in a bold bid to lift nationwide bulk-billing rates to 90 per cent by the decade’s end. It comes as Australians are set to go to polls having a harder finding bulk billed appointments than when Labor came to power in 2022, with rates starting to plunge in the final years of the former Coalition government. The promised federal funds aim to add an extra 18 million bulk billed GP visits annually while bolstering the workforce. Anthony Albanese, who will formally unveil the election pitch in Tasmania on Sunday, said the policy “lifts up our entire nation and ensures no one is held back, and no one is left behind”. “I want every Australian to know they only need their Medicare card, not their credit card, to receive the healthcare they need,” the Prime Minister said in a statement on Saturday. “No Australian should have to check their bank balance to see if they can afford to see a doctor. “That is not who we are. That is not the future we want for Australia.” Of the $8.5 billion, $617 million would go toward strengthening the workforce, including $265.2 million to expand GP training by 200 placements per year and $204.8 million to incentivise junior doctors to pursue general practice. The remaining $7.9 billion would go into tripling the bulk-billing incentive for all Medicare patients, building on a 2023 expansion targeting younger and older Australians. Data published last year showed working Australians were somewhat left behind, with patients aged 16-64 getting about 69 per cent of their appointments bulk-billed, as of October 2024. The new cash would create an incentive for practices that bulk bill all patients — a move the Albanese government has estimated would increase the number of fully bulk billed practices to around 4800 nationally and save patients $859 million per year by 2030. The investment would represent the biggest single investment in Medicare in its 41 years. The Albanese government has already pumped billions into bulk-billing incentives – a move that appears to have arrested the plunge but not managed to bring it back up to 2022 numbers. Bulk-billing rates hit a record 89 per cent high in 2020 under the former Coalition government. It took a steep tumble after that, plunging to 77 per cent in 2023, before slightly bouncing back to 78 per cent as of October last year. Independent experts have put it down to flow-on effects from the Abbott government’s rebates freeze more than a decade ago, when Peter Dutton was health minister. Despite the freeze being an extension of a temporary Labor measure rolled out in 2013, the Albanese government has used it to attack the now-opposition leader, with Mark Butler promising the latest funding boost “will put back into Medicare every dollar that Peter Dutton’s rebate freeze took out”. Mr Dutton has accused Labor of running a “scare campaign”, pointing to the Coalition’s pledge to double the number of mental health sessions covered by Medicare.