Labor built Medicare and we’ll always strengthen it.
The Albanese Government is working to ensure every Australian is able to access quality healthcare when they need it.
Because access to healthcare should only rely on your Medicare card, not your credit card.
• Announced a re-elected Albanese Government will deliver the biggest ever boost to Medicare so Australians can see a GP for free.
• Funding and opening 87 bulk billed Medicare Urgent Care Clinics to make it easier for Australians to get the urgent treatment they need – from highly qualified doctors and nurses – while taking pressure off hospitals.
• Strengthening Medicare – the largest investment in bulk billing in the 40-year history of Medicare, restoring bulk billing for people who need to see their GP most often.
• Empowering nurses and midwives to deliver the high quality care they’re trained to provide.
• Adding more than 15,000 new doctors to the health system in two years and boosting the number of doctors training to become GPs by almost 25%.
• Thanks to our Government’s investments in Medicare, our health system is now ranked as the best in the world by the internationally renowned Commonwealth Fund.
• Delivering cheaper medicines to ease cost of living pressures. Making hundreds of common medicines cheaper, by allowing millions of Australians to buy two months’ worth of medicine for the price of a single prescription and freezing the cost of PBS medicines.
• We’ve made the biggest reduction to PBS medicine prices since the scheme was introduced.
• That’s why we made medicines cheaper, saving Australians over $1 billion so far.
• We’re also cutting the cost of more than 300 common medicines by allowing doctors to prescribe 60 day prescriptions, saving you money and time.
• Establishing 22 endometriosis and pelvic pain specialist clinics across every state and territory, to help women with endometriosis and polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) get the care they need.
• Over half a billion dollars for women’s health – more choice and better treatments at a lower cost. Funding more contraceptives, clinics to treat endometriosis and pelvic pain and treatments for menopause.
• Making sure that Australian women suffering from endometriosis and complex gynaecological conditions have access to longer specialist consultations covered under Medicare.
• Establishing a National Women’s Health Advisory Council to address stark differences in the health outcomes for women and girls.
• Enhancing First Nations health infrastructure, delivering $10 million for repairs, maintenance and upgrades to health clinics and infrastructure across Australia.
• Launched the first ever 10 year National Action Plan for the Health and Wellbeing of LGBTIQA+ people, plus an investment of $15.5 million in priority areas.
• Invested $22 million in health and medical research to improve treatment and care for LGBTIQA+ people through the Medical Research Future Fund.
• Establishing a network of 61 free, walk-in adult Medicare Mental Health Centres across Australia.
• Invested $43.9 million to put Australia on track to eliminate transmission of HIV by 2030.
• Delivering world leading vaping reforms to protect younger Australians from the harms of vaping.
