Health Legislation Amendment (Improving Choice and Transparency for Private Health Consumers) Bill 2026
Senator CAROL BROWN (Tasmania) (12:38): I rise to support the Health Legislation Amendment (Improving Choice and Transparency for Private Health Consumers) Bill 2026. Australians can compare the prices of flights, hotel rooms or household appliances in a matter of minutes, but, when a GP refers someone to a specialist, finding out what that care is likely to cost can be harder.
That is not a small problem. In 2024-25, more than 800,000 Australians delayed or missed specialist care because of cost. A 2025 Grattan Institute report found that average out-of-pocket costs for specialist attendance had risen by 73 per cent in real terms since 2010, with the average out-of-pocket costs for those who paid a bill reaching $300 in 2023.
When somebody is worried about their health, they should not always have to navigate a system where the price is unclear until the bill arrives. That's what this bill is about—more information, more transparency and more protection for consumers. Schedule 1 deals with transparency.
The Medical Costs Finder was supposed to help Australians understand the likely costs of specialist care, but the voluntary model simply did not work. The former government spent $24 million establishing the website. By the end of 2022, of around 6,300 eligible specialists in the 11 specialist specialities included at the time, just six doctors had chosen to display their fee information.
Even three years later, only around 88 doctors were voluntarily displaying their fees. This is not meaningful transparency. This bill fixes that problem by allowing information already held by government through Medicare, hospitals and private health insurers to be published through the Medical Costs Finder.
That can include information about individual medical practitioners, the fees they charge, where they practice, relevant Medicare benefits, and the likely out-of-pocket costs for patients. Importantly, medical practitioners will not have to manually upload this information. The system will draw on administrative data already collected.
Equally importantly, patient privacy is protected. No patient information will be published. The principle here is straightforward.
If people are expected to make choices about their health care, they need useful information on which to base these choices. Fees can vary significantly between specialists, between practitioners and between locations. For a Tasmanian considering specialist treatment, being able to see where a practitioner works, what they generally charge and what the likely gap might be gives them a clearer indication of the costs before they make that decision.
It will not make every specialist consultation cheap, but it gives patients information they have not had before, and that gives them more power to ask questions, compare options and make an informed decision. Schedule 2 deals with another consumer issue, product phoenixing in private health insurance. Product phoenixing is where an insurer closes an existing product and then opens an identical or very similar product at a higher premium or makes changes that reduce the value of the cover without the normal level of ministerial scrutiny.
People who pay for private health insurance are entitled to confidence that the product that they are buying represents fair value and that the rules cannot simply be worked around. This bill closes that loophole. Private health insurers will be required to seek ministerial approval for premiums on proposed new products and, where certain changes are made to existing products that reduce cover, benefits or the value of terms and conditions.
In other words, an insurer should not be able to avoid scrutiny simply by giving essentially the same product a new name or reshaping it in a way that leaves consumers worse off. The bill also puts the annual premium approval process on a clearer legislative footing. These measures have been welcomed by consumer organisations, and both the Australian Medical Association and Private Healthcare Australia have supported the broad direction of the legislation.
This is another part of the Albanese Labor government's broader work to make health care more affordable, accessible and fair. For Labor, health is not an optional extra. It's one of the central responsibilities of government.
We built Medicare, and we are strengthening it. We have made the biggest investment in Medicare in its history. We have expanded bulk-billing incentives.
We have established Medicare urgent care clinics so Australians can receive fully bulk-billed urgent care without having to go to a hospital emergency department. We have also delivered the largest cut to the maximum cost of a general PBS script in the history of the scheme. The maximum price has fallen from $42.50 in 2022 to $25, while the concessional co-payment is frozen at $7.70 until 2030.
These things matter because health is also a cost-of-living issue. A family budget does not distinguish between the grocery bills, the power bill, the cost of a prescription and the cost of seeing a doctor or specialist. They all come out of the same household income.
That is why our approach to health has been practical: make GP care more affordable, make medicines cheaper, provide more free urgent care, strengthen Medicare, and, through this bill, make sure people have better information about specialist costs and stronger protections when they pay for private health insurance. Medicare remains the foundation of our health system, but many Australians also use private health insurance and private specialist care, and they deserve a system that is clear and fair.
Strengthening Medicare is not only about what happens when somebody walks into a GP clinic. It's also about making the wider health system easier to navigate and ensuring patients are treated with respect when they move between primary care, specialist care, hospitals and private insurance. This bill delivers two election commitments: it delivers greater transparency on patient medical fees, and it outlaws product phoenixing.
Both changes put consumers in a stronger position. Australians should be able to know more about what their care is likely to cost before they receive the bill, they should be able to compare their options, and people paying for private health insurance should know that insurers cannot sidestep the normal scrutiny of premium changes by repackaging products. This is practical health reform.
It is about transparency, affordability and fairness. It's another step in the Albanese Labor government's work to strengthen Medicare and make our health system work better for Australians. I commend the bill to the Senate.