The Health Minister has heard you, loud and clear

Call it a rite of passage or a coming of age, but the FiftyUp Club has reached a significant milestone.

We sat down with the Federal Health Minister, Peter Dutton, to deliver your message in Canberra this week … and he listened.

The Minister warmly welcomed me and my FiftyUp Club Colleague Jess Lindell into his office and he treated your submission with respect.

Together we went through your overwhelming response to the Federal Budget and called on the Minister to reduce the impact of co-payments on Australians aged over 50, particularly for pensioners on fixed incomes.

We also asked the Minister to strengthen the disclosure requirements of private health insurers, so that we can see premium increases by age brackets in the annual round of price rises. The full submission is available here.

The Club talked. He listened.

Then he promised to review your submission more closely and provide us all with a formal reply.

But barely hours after our cordial and respectful talks, the Minister went public to talk compromise with regard to the $7 co-payment proposal.

He repeated in public what he had earlier told us in private – that is, he is prepared to compromise on the co-payment.

This is what Seven News Canberra Political Editor Mark Riley put to air that night, with the Minister saying: “If people have sensible suggestions to make, we’re happy to consider those”.

Thank you Minister.

That was precisely what we had just done.

Riley’s story also quoted the FiftyUp Club’s 11,000-member submission.

Riley called it a “pragmatic retreat from a hardline budget”, and he is right.

I reckon Mr Dutton took on board the 11,000 voices of our 91,000 members in our health care costs survey.

Yes, he does comprehend that more than two-thirds of us FiftyUps believe the system is unsustainable and are prepared to contribute a small amount to our own health care costs if it helps balance the Federal Budget.

But he listened when we showed him that 30% of you say GP co-payments would force you to avoid the doctor when sick, or go to hospital instead.

And 40% say co-payments and Health Insurance prices are likely to change how you vote at the next election.  Ouch, by any party’s language.

Thank you members for your feedback, and thank you Minister for your time and your offer to respond formally.

We know the structure of the Senate complicates the equation going forward. But new Senators must know it is we FiftyUps who pay the bills.

FiftyUps, we are the voice.