EXPLANATORY STATEMENT
STATUTORY RULES 1985 NO. 41
ISSUED BY AUTHORITY OF THE MINISTER FOR HEALTH
HEALTH INSURANCE COMMISSION ACT 1973
HEALTH INSURANCE COMMISSION REGULATIONS (AMENDMENT)
Section 44 of the Health Insurance Commission Act 1973 (‘the Act’) provides that the Governor-General may make regulations, not inconsistent with the Act, prescribing all matters required or permitted by the Act to be prescribed or necessary or convenient to be prescribed for carrying out or giving effect to the Act.
Parts II and IIA of the Act respectively set out the functions of the Health Insurance Commission (“the Commission”) in relation to the medicare scheme and the conduct of medibank private. Sub-section 8E(1) in Part IIB of the Act provides that in addition the Commission shall perform such functions in relation to health insurance as are prescribed and such functions in relation to other matters relating to health as are prescribed.
Sub-section 41B(1) of the Act provides that where functions are conferred upon the Commission under Part IIB of the Act, the regulations may
make provision for modifications of the provisions of Part V of the Act in, or in connection with, their application to the activities of the Commission in the performance of those functions. Sub-section 41B(2) of the Act provides that this modification includes the alteration of a provision, the addition or omission of a provision, or the substitution of a new provision for an existing one. Part V of the Act deals with matters of finance.
The purpose of the regulations is primarily to prescribe, for the purposes of sub-section 8E(1) of the Act, additional functions to be performed by the Commission.
These functions are to process on behalf of the Repatriation Commission, established under section 7 of the Repatriation Act 1920, claims for payment submitted to the Repatriation Commission in respect of the provision of medical treatment to persons under Part IV of the Repatriation Regulations; and to prepare, on behalf of the Repatriation Commission, cheques for the payment of these claims.
The performance of these functions by the Commission permits a rationalisation whereby the extensive suitably specialised medicare resources of the Commission can be applied to the processing
of claims for payment for medical treatment received by the Repatriation Commission. These claims relate to an estimated 6 million services per year.
The regulations also, in pursuance of sub-section 41B(1) of the Act, make provision for the modification of a number of provisions of Part V of the Act in connection with their application to the activities of the Commission in the performance of the new functions. The effect of these modifications is that the new functions are regarded as part of the medicare functions of the Commission for the purposes of the provisions of the Act relating to the formal apportionment of the Commission’s assets and expenditure and the maintenance of separate bank accounts in respect of its medicare and medibank private functions.
The regulations in repealing the current Regulation 4 of the Health Insurance Commission Regulations omit an obsolete provision which conferred on the Commission the function of administering on behalf of A.M.W.S.U. Health Care Limited the medical benefits fund and the hospital benefits fund formerly conducted by the company. These funds have been wound up under the National Health Act 1953.
The statutory rules came into effect on the date of their notification in the Commonwealth of Australia Gazette.