Scare campaigns only work when they reinforce or add to what is already known.

Within weeks of its election in 2013 the Coalition entertained a proposal from a former advisor to Tony Abbott as health minister to end free visits to the doctor by requiring a mandatory co-payment of $6. Anyone who didn't like it would be invited to take out private health gap insurance.

Its Commission of Audit recommended a co-payment of $15 per visit and $5 per concession card holder, and then its first budget announced that "previously bulk-billed patients can expect to contribute $7 towards to cost of standard consultations." Medicare Rebates would be cut by $5 and bulk billing incentives would "only be paid to providers when they collect the $7 patient contribution". It encouraged public hospitals to charge public patients who walked in off the street in order to stem the leakage from doctors.