{"id":4198,"date":"2016-02-01T18:09:39","date_gmt":"2016-02-01T18:09:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/?p=4198"},"modified":"2016-02-01T18:09:39","modified_gmt":"2016-02-01T18:09:39","slug":"australians-may-have-to-pay-for-pap-smears-blood-tests-urine-tests-and-imaging-services","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/?p=4198","title":{"rendered":"Australians may have to pay for pap smears, blood tests, urine tests and imaging services"},"content":{"rendered":"

Malcolm Turnbull has axed bulk billing for diagnostic imaging and pathology as part of a new $650 million funding cut to Medicare and a $2.1 billion cut to health care around Australia. The fact is this. As a direct result of the Liberal’s cuts, patients with critical health conditions will be forced to either pay more or skip vital scans and tests.\u00a0The Australian Diagnostic Imaging Association said the cuts will be worse for patients than Tony Abbott\u2019s failed $7 GP tax. <\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is backed up by the The Australian Medical Association who have described the proposal as a\u00a0“co-payment by stealth”.<\/p>\n

Every year, over 800 Australian women are diagnosed with cervical cancer,<\/strong> and around a third of those women are likely to die from the disease.<\/p>\n

Free and accessible pathology tests have been a key component in the early detection of not only cancer, but STI’s, UTI’s and pregnancy. It is simply unacceptable that the Liberals would cut bulk-billing incentives for these services.<\/strong> (Media Release from the Labor Party)<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

According to a Liberal Party spokes person who did not wish to be identified, the changes to bulk billing for MRI scans and other imaging services\u00a0will save the government $650 million over four years.<\/p>\n

The Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia\u00a0said\u00a0the move would\u00a0force patients to pay at least $30 for pap smears, as well as higher costs for\u00a0urine and blood tests<\/a>.
\nThe government disputes the\u00a0figures but a\u00a0social media backlash rapidly gathered pace after an article was published in women’s Mamamia.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Malcolm Turnbull has axed bulk billing for diagnostic imaging and pathology as part of a new $650 million funding cut to Medicare and a $2.1 billion cut to health care around Australia. The fact is this. As a direct result of the Liberal’s cuts, patients with critical health conditions will be forced to either pay […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4198"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4198\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}