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It is John Costella who misses the point on bulk-billing (Letters, 17/3); the goal is to maintain its availability and the most plausible way of achieving this is by fattening GPs' wallets.
It is important that increases in the rebate be directly linked to bulk-billing; for instance, by only giving the increase to bulk-billed consultations or to fully bulk-billing practices.
Cost would be modest, far less than any billion-dollar plan and probably not much more than double the $170 million the Government is nonchalantly writing off to the private health insurance industry after the latest fee hike.
If the Government only increases rebates in areas with low bulk-billing rates, clusters of GPs who have been maintaining bulk-billing for ethical reasons miss out. Meanwhile, moneygrubbers score another pay rise.
Dr Andrew Gunn
Published in The Australian
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