Portfolio — 25 March 2026

The Assistant Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention and Assistant Minister for Rural and Regional Health, Ms McBride, introduced the Health Legislation Amendment (Improving Choice and Transparency for Private Health Consumers) Bill 2026 in the House, framing it as an election commitment to reduce cost-driven barriers to specialist care [TA-260325-house-8e0b2c08f739:s038].

The scale of the problem she cited is substantial: in 2024-25, 8.6 per cent of Australians — more than 800,000 people — delayed or went without specialist care due to cost, with medical specialist fees the primary driver [TA-260325-house-8e0b2c08f739:s038].

The bill operates through two schedules with distinct mechanisms. Schedule 1 targets the low uptake of the existing Medical Costs Finder tool by authorising the government to publish specialist fees, hospital costs, insurer data, and out-of-pocket cost figures drawn from Medicare and insurer billing records — with patient privacy protections maintained [TA-260325-house-8e0b2c08f739:s038].

This is a meaningful extension of the Finder's current functionality, moving from voluntary disclosure to government-published fee data. Schedule 2 addresses what Ms McBride characterised as the phoenixing loophole in private health insurance: insurers restructuring products to avoid regulatory scrutiny. The fix requires ministerial approval for all new private health insurance products and any changes to key terms, and it formalises the annual premium round with structured timelines and additional information processes [TA-260325-house-8e0b2c08f739:s038].

Taken together, the two schedules pursue a coherent consumer-protection logic — greater fee transparency to support informed decisions before engaging the private system, and tighter product oversight to constrain insurer behaviour within it. No parliamentary record from this Note window includes an opposition position on the bill; the debate record on second reading appears limited to Ms McBride's contribution.