Fed: Doctors disappointed at indemnity decision

AAP General News (Australia)
12-17-2003
Fed: Doctors disappointed at indemnity decision

CANBERRA, Dec 17 AAP - The Australian Medical Association today expressed disappointment
at reports the government planned to keep a controversial insurance levy on doctors.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported Health Minister Tony Abbott appeared to have lost
a battle in cabinet to abolish the IBNR (Insured But Not Reported) levy.

Earlier this year doctors threatened to quit the public hospital system en masse because
of the levy.

Cabinet has reportedly decided doctors should be required to pay up to 7.5 per cent
of their income on medical insurance as well as levy costs.

But the government would pick up 80 per cent of costs above the 7.5 per cent threshold.

AMA President Bill Glasson said he had hoped cabinet would adopt all of the recommendations
of a report into medical indemnity insurance, including scrapping the levy.

"I was hoping that the cabinet would pick that up more or less as a complete package,"

Dr Glasson told ABC radio.

Dr Glasson said doctors could probably live with a reduced levy, as long as they knew
how much they had to pay and the government introduced a long term solution to the medical
indemnity crisis.

"The trouble is there's all these figures being quoted about how big the IBNR amount
is," he said.

"We don't want to be finding some figure that really has got little basis.

"I suppose if we know there's X million dollars actually owing, then we could actually
pass that down to the doctors in a fair way, and I suppose we could live with that, (so)
long as there was as a long term sustainable solution in place from the point of view
of this medical indemnity crisis."

AAP pj/sjb/bwl p

KEYWORD: INDEMNITY AMA

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