Abbott and Hockey’s proposed changes to Medicare have been slammed across the board. A $7 GP fee and the billions of dollars in healthcare cuts have been labelled “a nightmare” by the Australian Medical Association, and “the end of our health system as we know it” by the nurses’ union, the ANMF. They are not exaggerating.

The health system “as we know it” is far from perfect. It is chronically and deliberately underfunded. But bulk-billing clinics, which service 82 percent of the population, are free at the point of service and hospital emergency rooms and emergency treatment is free for all Australian residents and citizens.

This system makes the bosses of the private healthcare industry fume. The fact that the vast majority of people can access a GP without paying an upfront fee is of benefit to lower income earners, pensioners, disabled people and the working class more broadly. To the private health industry, it is nothing but lost profit.

In fact, the organisation that kick-started recent talk of a Medicare “co-payment” was industry lobby group the Australian Centre for Health Research (ACHR). Innocuous as it sounds, the ACHR is actually a think tank of bosses in the private health industry. Its board of directors is made up of several executives of Australia’s largest health insurance companies, including Bupa and Australian Unity, as well as executives from major private hospital networks such as Epworth and Cabrini Health.

Health insurance and private healthcare bosses are working together to create a US-style system. The Liberals are only too happy to help. The directors at ACHR look with envy at the mega-profits being raked in by health insurance companies in the US, and they want to join the party. It’s that simple. The public health system is nothing more than an obstacle to the growth of their share portfolios.

The $7 GP fee is the thin edge of a very large wedge. But it is breaking through the surface that would be the biggest victory of all for the ACHR. Once the idea of user-pays healthcare is introduced to every aspect of Medicare, full-scale privatisation and skyrocketing “co-payments” become that much easier to push through. A line must be drawn in the sand now.

The American Journal of Public Health found that in 2009 more than 45,000 unnecessary deaths occurred in the US due to the unaffordability of private health insurance and the lack of a public system. A privately dominated healthcare system would see similar horrific consequences in Australia.

[Rally to defend Medicare: Melbourne – Friday 30 May, 5:30pm State Library Victoria; Sydney – Saturday 31 May, 1pm Sydney Town Hall.]