In a bid to ensure Labor remains in power at the next election, the Coalition has doubled down on Labor’s Medicare spending spree. The Uniparty is in full swing and nobody can tell the difference between the major parties. While the Greens will help Labor get over the line, the plethora of conservative parties that are reacting to the Coalition’s apparent willingness to join the Uniparty is undoing Menzies’ legacy before our eyes. The recent non-debate over Medicare reform is a case in point.

Medicare is an expensive subsidisation program that forces everyone to pay to see a GP unless the GP bulk bills. Health insurance in Australia is a casualty of Medicare’s bloated bureaucracy and has become a waste of money as services have been reduced and rebates from health insurance providers have declined. But once you earn more than the limit, you end up having to decide between paying for health insurance or paying the government more money to sit in waiting rooms for longer.

The extra money you pay as the Medicare Levy Surcharge begins at an extra one per cent of reportable income for those who do not have appropriate hospital cover. The longer you leave off getting private hospital cover, the more expensive it becomes. The Lifetime Health Cover Loading adds 2 per cent to the cost of health insurance for each year you don’t have health cover over age 30. If you try to buy private health cover for the first time at age 50, for example, you could be forced to pay up 40 per cent more.

The Medicare Levy Surcharge forces higher income earners who do not take out private health insurance to pay more for public-funded healthcare. The Lifetime Health Cover is meant to encourage you to take out private health cover earlier in life. Together, the two schemes punish you for earning more, with no ability to completely opt out of the socialist medical system established by the Hawke Labor government.

The layers of complex policy instruments in the healthcare sector mean that you end up being ripped off for health insurance that requires you to go to medical practitioners who generally charge more than the scheduled price so you are always out of pocket. It is the biggest scam, and conservatives ought to be railing against the system.

Instead, the Coalition announced over the weekend that it will spend even more money on Medicare than Labor, matching Labor’s $8.5 billion with $9 billion.

Mr Albanese’s plan is for ‘90 per cent of GP visits to be fully covered by the taxpayer by 2030’. Mr Dutton’s announced his plan is the same but adds $500 million more for mental health.

Much like the last election we are seeing mediocrity reign supreme. Morrison’s small target election campaign against Albanese’s small target election campaign has left Australians worse off than they have been for generations.

A major reason we are worse off is government spending has been at record levels. Even our unemployment figures are faked because so many jobs are being provided by the public sector. Australia is in crisis and only a break from the current idiocy will save us. Enter the Uniparty.

It’s pointless to urge people to vote for the Coalition when the Coalition keep proving they are part of the Uniparty. The Liberal Party have chased the stupidity of Labor and the Teals at their own expense. The Liberals are losing their base to minor conservative parties and the recently announced venture by Clive Palmer. All this will do is give us another Labor government that nobody can afford.

While the business of politicking requires a level of savviness that escapes most ordinary folk, matching the government’s Medicare policy with an additional sweetener may help to neutralise the potential impact of a Labor ‘Mediscare’ campaign. At the same time, most people are more worried about their overall financial future than their medical bills specifically.

It is wrong to blame the medical sector outright, which has urged both parties for ‘more reform at the upcoming election’.

Instead, we are getting more of the same.

Australia needs real leadership. But we are heading the way of the UK where life has turned to putty. Donald Trump won his presidency on every possible measure by rejecting the Uniparty orthodoxy and remaking the Republican party in his own image. That is what we need here, but instead we appear to have a choice between two limp fish who both swim with the Uniparty.

Our health system is in crisis. Not because it is bad, but because it is essentially a rip-off.

Another $8.5 or $9 billion for Medicare will be consumed by the sector without any noticeable improvement. Grifters will be delighted, but the rest of us will bleed money for nothing tangible.

What we really need is true reform. Instead, we are on track to end up like the UK where Nigel Farage’s well-meaning Reform UK party will only damage the Conservatives and keep Labour in power for longer. As the conservative vote splinters here, we can expect more of the same. The Coalition needs to stand up for its values through its actions. Voters will need evidence of that quick smart if there is any hope for Australia.

This latest Medicare announcement by the Coalition is not an encouraging sign for those of us who are hoping for more from Mr Dutton.

Dr Michael de Percy @FlaneurPolitiq is a political scientist and political commentator. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILTA), and a Member of the Royal Society of NSW. He is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Telecommunications and the Digital Economy, Chairman of the ACT and Southern NSW Chapter of CILTA, and a member of the Australian Nuclear Association. Michael is a graduate of the Royal Military College, Duntroon and was appointed to the College of Experts at the Australian Research Council in 2022. All opinions in this article are the author’s own and are not intended to reflect the views of any other person or organisation.