“The way this will be managed is that people will be turned away from emergency departments… The feds have got deeper pockets.”
Health Minister Mark Butler on Friday said he understood “premiers always want more money”.
“But they also recognise what else we’re doing in health. We’re opening more Urgent Care Clinics between now and Christmas. We’re putting more cancer medicines just this week on the PBS and making those PBS scripts much cheaper. And also in four weeks, our record investment in bulk billing will start to take effect,” he said on Sunrise.
“There is a shared commitment between states and the Commonwealth to deliver the best quality healthcare system. I’m sure when we get to negotiate, we’ll reach a deal with states that reflects that shared commitment.”
The treasurers’ statement from Friday said Duckett’s report had identified “several key cost growth factors that are legitimate, unavoidable, almost certain to persist over the medium-term, and beyond the control of states”.
Duckett found the current 6.5 per cent growth cap on federal spending was creating “a growing misalignment with actual system costs, particularly as historical cost pressures flow through”.
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He said data released by the Independent Health and Aged Care Pricing Authority revealed a 12.3 per cent increase in health prices for the 2025-26 financial year – a larger figure than the federal government would have factored in when making the National Cabinet agreement in 2023.
Inflation, wage pressure and workforce shortages all contributed, Duckett said.
“But the big thing we found was that many more patients are stuck in hospitals that don’t need to be there… they’re stranded in an acute hospital ward when they’re ready for an aged care facility or disability accommodation.
“This went up more than 50 per cent over a couple of years. There are more than 1200 people sitting in hospital beds waiting to go to a residential aged care facility – that’s double the size of the Alfred Hospital in Victoria.”
Duckett said the public expected the Commonwealth to keep its end of the bargain and lift its share of public hospital funding, even though it would be difficult for Butler to extract more money from Treasurer Jim Chalmers.
“I think the states have to make some compromises as well,” Duckett said. “The state hospitals are not perfectly efficient, for example, so they ought to be saying they can improve their own efficiency to reduce cost burdens too.”
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