Australia government touts free healthcare hotline as general election nears

SYDNEY (Reuters) -Australia's Labor authorities connected Sunday pledged to bolster the country's cosmopolitan healthcare strategy with a escaped aesculapian proposal enactment and telehealth work if it wins the May 3 wide election, successful which cost-of-living pressures loom arsenic a cardinal issue.

Centre-left Labor traditionally sees its extortion of Australia's Medicare cosmopolitan healthcare strategy arsenic a cardinal differentiator betwixt it and the blimpish Liberal-National opposition, which bills itself arsenic superior connected economical absorption and borderline protection.

The authorities has sought to marque Medicare a halfway predetermination issue, pledging successful February an other A$8.5 cardinal ($5.43 billion) for the scheme, amid concerns astir reduced levels of bulk billing - a outgo enactment wherever doctors measure Medicare for their services truthful patients person nary out-of-pocket expenses.

On Sunday, Health Minister Mark Butler said connected Australian Broadcasting Corporation tv that the caller hotline would present 24-hour entree to aesculapian unit "intended to screen circumstances wherever radical request to beryllium seen immediately."

"When unwellness oregon wounded strikes successful your family, 1800MEDICARE volition beryllium determination - a 24/7 wellness proposal enactment and afterhours GP telehealth work backed by Medicare," Butler added successful a statement, which pegged the measure's outgo astatine A$204 million.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is expected to denote the argumentation connected Sunday successful New South Wales' capital, Sydney, Australia's astir populous metropolis and a captious predetermination battleground.

Peter Dutton, person of the Liberal-National conjugation and Albanese's main governmental opponent, has pledged to walk A$9 cardinal connected Medicare if his blimpish broadside of authorities wins authorities connected May 3.

Early voting successful the election, which polling shows Labor holding a slim pb implicit the Liberal-National coalition, began connected Tuesday. The run has been dominated by cost-of-living alleviation pledges and rival plans to boost lodging affordability.

($1 = 1.5642 Australian dollars)

(Reporting by Sam McKeith successful Sydney; Editing by Matthew Lewis)