Australian Medical Association (AMA) NSW
Health took a big hit in this year’s Federal Budget.
The Health portfolio Budget papers looked thinner than previous years but, along with broader decisions out of Treasury, this Budget rips something like $1.8 billion out of health.
All in all, it is a quadruple hit on patients that will have long-term impacts on their ability to pay for their health care needs.
Read more in Australian Medicine at the Federal AMA website.
Amid the avalanche of Government media releases about the Gonski education reforms last month, a release was quietly issued by the Treasurer’s office during the media ‘dead zone’ of Saturday afternoon, April 13.
Nobody was supposed to notice, because the Treasurer was announcing a political time bomb – a cap of $2000 a year for tax deductions on work-related self-education expenses.
It did not take long for the AMA to grasp the potential devastating consequences of this change for doctors and for other professions.
Read more in Australian Medicine at the Federal AMA website.
AMA President, Dr Steve Hambleton, said today that the Government’s proposed changes to tax deductions for work-related self-education expenses would have a devastating effect on the ability of doctors to improve their medical knowledge and skills through their training years and with professional development throughout their careers.
An AMA online poll has received more than 4200 responses from concerned doctors, with 98 per cent stating that the changes would seriously impair their professional development as a doctor.
Read more at the Federal AMA website.
Transcript: AMA President, Dr Steve Hambleton, Parliament House, 1 May 2013
Subject: National Disability Insurance Scheme; work-related self-education expenses
STEVE HAMBLETON: Look, the AMA first of all notes the Government’s response to funding the NDIS. We’re very pleased that the Government has actually made an announcement that actually permanently funds the NDIS going forward. This is something the AMA absolutely supports.
Read more at the Federal AMA website.
