The Australian government has announced its plan to take away bulk billing incentive payments for pathology tests from 1 July 2016.
Cuts to pathology bulk billing will mean patients may have to pay for tests, pathology services could close and jobs could be lost. In short, your healthcare will suffer.
We can fight these cuts to pathology. Public pressure has stopped similar threats to healthcare before.
We need to raise public awareness of how this will affect healthcare and demand that the government keeps pathology accessible to all Australians.
Sign the petition, email your state senators, the Health Minister and the Prime Minister to tell them to stop cuts to pathology bulk billing.
What will cuts to pathology bulk billing mean?
You will have to pay for pathology tests include blood tests, urine tests, swabs (such as pap smears) and tests on other samples of tissue or body fluids.
Don’t Kill Bulk Bill
Pathology Australia, representing all private pathology providers, announced today that its consumer campaign opposing the Government’s cuts to bulk billing for pathology services kicks off today in all 5000-plus pathology collection centres.
What it means to me
It makes NO sense that the Government would remove funding for ‘preventative medical testing’. We are told all the time to be tested BEFORE to avoid costly and painful sickness and diseases. It is the Government that will bear the huge additional costs of treating the huge increase in POST sickness and diseases that will flood Australia.
Where is the $sense in that?