11 April 2019 - Labor’s decision to prioritise fee relief for cancer patients is a departure from its previous policies on out-of-pocket expenses, with a former adviser to Julia Gillard expressing concern the policy will open up a “can of worms with lots of unintended consequences”.

A Shorten government would direct $433 million into Medicare incentives for cancer specialists to bulk-bill more patients in follow-up consultations. It has confidentially given the broad policy parameters to the Parliamentary Budget Office for costing, and proposes the details be worked out by a Medicare review taskforce and cancer groups once in government.

While the PBO advice will not be released until the end of the campaign, Labor has said it ­expects the bulk-billing rate for surgeons to increase from 36% to 80% for cancer surgeon­s and from 43% to 85% for oncologists.

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