Private Health Insurance Amendment (Modernising the Private Health Insurance Rebate) Bill 2026
Ms COFFEY (Griffith) (17:21): Every Australian should be able to look forward to getting older with confidence, staying connected to their community, enjoying their independence and knowing good care will be there when they need it. That is what the Albanese Labor government is investing in. We are strengthening Medicare through more bulk-billing, permanent urgent care clinics and record funding for our public hospitals.
We are building on that work with more aged-care places and better support for people to remain in their own homes. For older Australians in Griffith, these investments support the freedom to keep living the lives they value, close to family, friends and familiar places. This bill, the Private Health Insurance Amendment (Modernising the Private Health Insurance Rebate) Bill 2026, will help fund that care.
It brings greater fairness to the private health insurance rebate and directs an estimated $3 billion in savings over four years into aged care. This is a decision about how public money can best support older Australians today and in the years ahead. For families, these services are closely connected.
A parent may need regular GP appointments, then Support at Home after a hospital stay. As their needs change, the care available to them must change too. Our responsibility is to make those services work together so people can receive the right care at each stage of their lives.
The private health insurance rebate helps eligible Australians meet the cost of their insurance premiums. At present, people aged 65 and over receive a higher rebate than younger people with the same income. It means two households on the same income can receive different levels of government support based only on their age.
That difference is difficult to justify. This bill removes that extra age based subsidy. From April next year, the same income based rebate rates will apply across age groups.
Older Australians who qualify will continue to receive a significant government contribution towards their premiums, at rates of around 24 per cent. The rebate will remain means tested, with greater assistance for people on lower incomes. But this is also a question of intergenerational fairness.
Younger policyholders make an important contribution to the system. People under 65 pay more in premiums, on average, than they receive in benefits. Participation by younger and healthier people helps keep private health insurance affordable.
Their income should determine the support they receive, just as it does for older policyholders. People on comparable incomes will qualify for the same rebate rate regardless of their age. At the same time, we will direct the savings towards aged care, where older Australians have particular needs.
That funding will help people access care according to their circumstances, including those without private health insurance. Younger Australians also have a stake in a strong aged-care system. Many are helping ageing parents while raising children and meeting their own living costs.
They want to know their parents can get support now and that reliable care will be available when they need it themselves. Modelling puts the average increase in out-of-pocket premium costs at around $250 a year per affected person, or about 70c a day. We understand that some older Australians will be unhappy with this decision.
For someone carefully managing their retirement income, any increase needs to be considered seriously. An average also means some people will face a different cost. We should explain the change clearly and acknowledge its effect on household budgets.
I believe this is a fairer way to allocate public funding and provide more care in older age. The savings will go directly into aged care, helping fund the support people need and new residential places to meet rising demand. It is also important to be clear about the support that will remain.
Eligible older Australians will continue to receive the income based rebate, and modelling shows that private health insurance membership is expected to be only around 0.4 per cent lower than it would be without this change. Overall membership is still expected to grow, including people aged over 65. This decision forms part of a much wider commitment to health and aged care.
We are investing in the services people need throughout their lives, from their local general practice to hospital treatment and care at home. The savings from this measure will help fund our government's broader $3.7 billion aged-care investment. This investment will support an additional 5,000 residential aged-care beds each year, principally for people with limited financial means.
Building subsidies and a higher restructured accommodation supplement will help providers build and maintain suitable accommodation. This builds on our first-term changes to encourage construction and give providers greater certainty to invest in residential aged care. The package will improve assessments and reduce waiting times for Support at Home, helping people receive support sooner.
We have monitored the program closely and listened to older Australians, families, advocates and providers. Their experiences have informed changes to make them fairer and more affordable. Many older Australians want to remain in familiar surroundings.
They want to keep their routines and stay close to the people they know. The government has listened to concerns about the cost of personal care. Under these changes, showering, dressing and continence support will be free alongside clinical care.
Making that care free is a direct response to older Australians and their advocates. Help with showering or dressing is deeply personal. Receiving that support respectfully can allow someone to start their day comfortably and keep living at home.
Costs should not force a person to go without essential care. Timely support also helps families and unpaid carers. Many are balancing work and caring responsibilities, trying to arrange appointments and make sure that someone they love is safe.
They need a system that responds before those responsibilities become unmanageable. The package will expand the End-of-Life Pathway, providing more care for people needing palliative support. We are investing more than $200 million to deliver 20 additional Specialist Dementia Care Program units and expand the Hospital to Aged Care Dementia Support Program.
People living with dementia need care suited to their needs. Their families need support from people with the training and the time to provide it. These investments will help older Australians move from hospital into appropriate residential care.
We are making a budget decision with a clear purpose: to make more care available to the people who need it. This investment responds to the needs that have developed over many years. Almost a decade of underinvestment under the coalition left aged care desperately needing more funding.
Older Australians and their families have waited too long for a system to meet their needs. Labor has taken responsibility for that work. We began reform in our first term.
Our budget builds on this reform through more residential places and improvements to Support at Home. Our response to the independent review of residential aged-care accommodation pricing will help providers build and maintain the homes older Australians deserve. These decisions require funding, and this bill helps provide it.
We want older Australians to receive dignified, quality care, whatever their financial means. We want families to have confidence in the support available for the people that they love. That commitment guides our investment in aged care and our wider work to strengthen Medicare.
Older Australians need a health system that works long before they require aged care. They need access to a GP. They need affordable medicines and somewhere to turn for urgent treatment.
We have invested in more bulk-billing so Australians can see a GP for free. That investment supports general practice and helps people seek care without an out-of-pocket charge. For older Australians, a trusted GP can provide care over many years.
They know a patient's medical history and help manage changes in their health. For someone living with several ongoing health conditions, medical appointments are a regular part of life. The cost of each visit adds to a household budget already stretched by other bills.
More bulk-billing makes it easier to keep those appointments and seek help early. But access to affordable care is a concern across generations. Older residents, working families and young people all benefit from a stronger Medicare.
That same commitment to affordable treatment extends to the pharmacy counter. We are making more life-changing medicines cheaper alongside our investment in bulk-billing and public hospitals. For an older person managing ongoing health conditions, affordable appointments and medicines are both part of receiving the care that they need.
That is the purpose of our investment: helping Australians afford care throughout their lives. Our Medicare urgent care clinics provide another example of that commitment in practice. There are now 137 clinics operating across Australia, offering fully bulk-billed treatment for non-life-threatening urgent care.
They are open seven days a week with extended hours and no appointment required. People can walk in with their Medicare card and receive the urgent care that they need. The three clinics serving Griffith have recorded over 50,000 presentations combined.
That includes 8,200 at Carina-Carindale, 6,400 at Coorparoo and 36,000 at South Brisbane. Each presentation represents someone receiving urgent care fully bulk-billed close to home. These clinics give our community more options for treatment and help take pressure off hospital emergency departments.
Nationally, these clinics have recorded more than 3.7 million presentations. One third of patients are under the age of 15, showing the value of this care to families too. Four out of five Australians now live within a 20-minute drive of a clinic, and 45 per cent of patients reported that they would have attended an emergency department or called an ambulance without their local clinic.
The hours these clinics operate make a real difference, and 29 per cent of visits have taken place on weekends. On weekdays, one in four visits have happened after 5 pm. That's why I'm proud that in this year's budget we made these urgent care clinics a permanent part of Medicare.
The Albanese Labor government is also providing an additional $25 billion in public hospital funding. Commonwealth funding for state and territory public hospitals is expected to reach a record $220 billion over five years. In my home state of Queensland, that share includes an additional $5.7 billion, with total Commonwealth funding estimated at $51.4 billion over those four years.
For an older patient, hospital care can involve treatment for a serious illness, surgery or support after a sudden decline in health. We are funding more care in the community and better support for people returning home or moving into aged care after a hospital stay. An older person ready for discharge needs suitable support beyond the hospital ward.
More aged-care places and better support at home can help them leave hospital safely. That is why our hospital and aged-care investments belong together. Funding the care people need after hospitals helps them recover in an appropriate setting and makes beds available for other patients.
Being ready to leave hospital does not always mean being ready to manage alone. Someone may still need help with personal care or ongoing clinical support. A safe discharge depends on having that help in place.
People who hold private health insurance deserve value for the premiums that they pay. Our government has introduced separate legislation to improve transparency about medical fees and strengthening oversight of insurance products. These changes would strengthen the Medical Costs Finder by publishing individual practitioners' fees and insurers' out-of-pocket data for common medical services.
The information would come from billing data already collected by government, removing the need for doctors to upload it themselves. Patients would have clearer information to compare costs and make decisions about their care. Supporting the health of the nation requires sustained investment and decisions about how to pay for it.
Labor accepts that responsibility. We are investing in bulk-billing and our permanent urgent care clinics; as you've heard, Deputy Speaker Georganas, the three centres we have in my community of Griffith have been functioning beautifully. We're delivering record public health funding and making more life-saving medicines cheaper.
Through this bill, we will direct an estimated $3 billion towards the aged-care services older Australians need and deserve. Our record reflects a clear belief: every Australian deserves access to affordable, quality health care, older Australians deserve care that they can rely on and families deserve confidence that help will be there.