Department digs deeper hole for Health Minister

Health Minister Butler... ham-fisted rebuttal by bureaucrats exposes faults in funding claims.

IN an odd move, the Federal Department of Health has botched a public defence of its Minister Mark Butler's false claim that health insurance companies are paying more to private hospitals by calling into question the government's own reporting data.

"In a ham-fisted bid to rescue itself and the Minister, the bureaucrats offer no defence for the basis for Mr Butler's public gaffe but instead attack the dataset that has been accepted for years," APHA CEO Brett Heffernan noted. "This appears to be a bid to muddy the waters, but all it does is throw the Minister under a bus."

The bureaucrats say the established method "also includes other amounts not paid to private hospitals, including accommodation payments paid to public hospitals, payments to doctors for medical services and for prescribed list devices".

"Let's address this nonsense directly," Mr Heffernan said. "The government's financial performance data does not distinguish the ownership of hospitals, so the long-accepted and most reasonable method is, still, to rely on hospital treatment claims. There is no alternative.

"By the health bureaucrats' reckoning, if public hospital payments could be removed from calculations then the payment ratio to private hospitals must, by definition, be even worse.

"Payments to doctors and for medical devices are undeniably patient benefits for hospital-related expenses. It is absurd to claim that Protheses List benefits are not paid to private hospitals. They are directly tied to the provision of hospital care for privately insured patients and are essential parts of the patient's treatment in private hospitals.

"The Department's rebuttal is a poor attempt at deflection. Either that, or both the Minister's office and the Federal Department of Health do not understand their own data. If so, what chance is there for informed decision-making?

"It was the Minister's office that proffered, in writing, on 23 July that:

"Based on information provided by insurers, the benefits ratio is expected to continue to increase, from 85.5% in 2023-24 to around 87% in 2024-25. I note the benefits in this ratio are inclusive of the net risk equalisation special account and state ambulance levies".

"The Department has offered no defence of the erroneous claim that the risk equalisation pool and state ambulance levies are, in any way, paid to hospitals.

"It means the Minister's public declaration on 25 June cannot be correct:

"I'm pleased to report that there has been a material increase in the benefits ratio, the amount of money that private health insurers have been paying to hospitals, and that the benefits ratio is likely to reach around 87% in the financial year".

"Five-and-a-half months ago Minister Butler gave the health insurers three months to increase their payments to private hospitals or he would regulate them to do so. Neither has happened.

"The admission by his office that the benefits ratio has been inflated by adding unrelated insurance pool funds and state ambulance levies that do not go to private hospitals, directly or indirectly, cannot be swept under the carpet."

-ENDS-

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