Australian government to cap hospital funding until 2025

CANBERRA, Feb. 7 (Xinhua) -- The Australian government is planning to cap hospital funding despite the nation's peak medical body calling for a spending boost.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Health Minister Greg Hunt will go to the Coalition of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting on Friday hoping to secure a new hospital funding agreement with the states.

A draft of the hospital funding document to be put forward by Turnbull and Hunt proposes that the federal government continue to pay 45 percent of the cost of hospital funding but caps spending growth at 6.5 percent per annum for five years from 2020.

Hunt told Fairfax Media on Wednesday that the proposal was "a genuine and generous offer to the states and territories for hospital funding through until 2025. We look forward to a constructive discussion with the states and territories in the months ahead, beginning this week at COAG."

It is similar to a deal struck by Turnbull and Hunt with the states for the period from July 2017 to June 2020, a deal which angered state governments and the Australian Medical Association (AMA).

Brian Owler, president of the AMA at the time of the previous deal, described it as "an inadequate short-term public hospital funding downpayment."

In its 2018-19 pre-budget submission, the AMA called for the cap to be lifted so as to "lift public hospitals out of their current funding crisis."

Despite signing on to the deal, Premier of Victoria Daniel Andrews in 2016 said "there's no getting away from or getting around or politely explaining away the fact that many billions of dollars will not be flowing to hospitals in my state and hospitals right across the nation."

Public hospital funding was a key issue at the 2016 election with Turnbull promising to match the Australian Labor Party's policy of paying 50 percent of hospital funding with uncapped spending. Enditem