Mrs ELSON (2:05 PM) —My question is addressed to the Minister for Health and Ageing. Would the minister inform the House how the new MedicarePlus package will make health care more affordable and bring peace of mind to all Australians?

Mr ABBOTT (Minister for Health and Ageing) —I thank the member for Forde for her question, and I know what an enthusiastic supporter of the MedicarePlus package she is. And why shouldn't she be? Under MedicarePlus, the Howard government has invested $2.9 billion in new money to ensure that Medicare remains for all time the universal guarantee of affordable, high-quality health care for all Australians. That is the essence of MedicarePlus.

The MedicarePlus safety net is the most important improvement to our health system since Medicare commenced in 1983. It is necessary, it is timely and it is important, because in the real world not everyone is going to be bulk-billed all the time. The world has changed since 1983. Back in those days, health care mostly involved visits to the GP or stays in a public hospital. Today it involves much more use of specialists, out-of-hospital diagnosticians and day proceduralists—and these services have never been widely bulk-billed.

For instance, the gap between the Medicare Benefits Schedule and the charge fee in the case of MRIs averages $104; for CT scans it averages $83; for ultrasounds it averages $56; and for specialist consultations it averages $28. It is because of these gaps that the MedicarePlus safety net is absolutely necessary. The MedicarePlus safety net will deliver to 20 million Australians the peace of mind that if they need help it is there for them. It is there for them thanks to the Howard government and MedicarePlus. Every year some 450,000 Australians will benefit from the safety net, but 20 million Australians will benefit from the peace of mind that the safety net brings. I inform the House that the latest figures show that some 33,000 individuals and families have already incurred more than $300 in gap expenses since the beginning of this year. Let me particularly point out to the member for Lalor that only 15 per cent of those expenses arise from GP consultations.

So restoring 80 per cent GP bulk-billing is not going to address the problem. Only the Howard government's MedicarePlus safety net can address this problem and ensure that Medicare remains our guarantee of affordable access to high-quality health care. Medicare has never meant universal bulk-billing. It certainly does not mean the kind of universal bulk-billing that the member for Lalor is pretending that she can deliver. What Medicare has always meant is a universal guarantee of affordable high-quality health care, and that is precisely what the Howard government is delivering—and only the Howard government can deliver it.