None of the major parties got the association’s full tick of approval, however.
With just two sleeps until the federal election, the AMA has weighed in on the promises made by Labor, the Liberals and the Greens across the various health domains.
None came out smelling particularly rose-like.
“There’s been a lack of major reforms or big ideas,” AMA president Dr Danielle McMullen said.
“We think both sides of politics could have gone harder on delivering the changes we really need to see across general practice, public hospitals and private health care as well as public health.
“Similar to what we’ve said before, the $8.5 billion for Medicare is the kind of quantum of funding we need to see, but actually where we [need it] is in reforms to the underlying structure of Medicare.
“[We need] to better support the complexity of illness that we see in general practice and to boost the workforce incentive payment so that we really can work in teams and get more nurses and allied health into our practices.”
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All told, the only party to make a commitment that fully aligned with the association’s election priorities was The Greens’ pledge for $30.6 billion in additional National Health Reform Agreement funding and the removal of the 6.5% cap on growth funding.
In terms of general practice specifically though, the smaller party came in last, given that it hasn’t made a commitment on GP training reforms, GP training incentives or a health advice line.
The Greens were also given a fail by the AMA for a lack of commitments on private health reform.
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“It was disappointing to not see more [focus on] the private health sector, despite real challenges in that sector with private hospitals closing or restricting their services,” Dr McMullen said.
“Obviously, the current government has established the private health CEO forum, and we’ll continue to engage with that and keep pushing for an independent private health system authority so that there’s a platform for real reforms.”
All of Labor’s health promises broadly aligned with the AMA’s election priorities but only represented a partial commitment.
For GPs specifically, Labor has made the most funding announcements of any of the major parties.
Those that have not been matched by the Liberals include $204.5 million for after-hours GP telehealth and $644.3 million for 50 additional Urgent Care Clinics.
The AMA rated all the Liberal National promises bar one as being broadly in line with AMA promises.
The sole exception was in the public health pillar, where the AMA gave the party a fail grade for its lack of commitment on increasing the federal government share of funding for public hospitals.
Every promise made by the coalition in the GP space was simply a matching of Labor’s pledges.
There was a bigger gap between all three parties across promises that the AMA defined as relating to ‘a health system for all’.
Where Labor pledged $1 billion to support Medicare Mental health Centres and the mental health workforce, the Liberals pledged $900 million to double the number of subsidised psychology sessions per person and The Greens proposed universal mental healthcare.
While both Labor and Liberal parties committed to a $573.3 million set of women’s health reforms, The Greens did not make any pledges on women’s health, nor did it make a commitment on LGBTQIA+ health like Labor or rural health funding like the coalition.
Both the Liberals and The Greens have committed to putting restrictions on gambling advertising, which Labor has remained silent on.
