EXPLANATORY STATEMENT
STATUTORY RULES 1985 NO. 36
ISSUED BY AUTHORITY OF THE MINISTER FOR HEALTH
HEALTH INSURANCE ACT 1973 HEALTH INSURANCE REGULATIONS (AMENDMENT)
Section 133 of the Health Insurance Act 1973 (‘the Act’) provides that the Governor-General may make regulations 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.
Sub-section 19A(1) of the Act provides that, subject to sub-section 19A(2) of the Act, the regulations may provide that, unless the Minister otherwise directs, medicare benefits are not payable under the Act in respect of professional services rendered in prescribed circumstances.
Sub-section 19A(2) of the Act provides that regulations shall not be made for the purposes of sub-section 19A(1) except in accordance with a recommendation made to the Minister by the Medicare Benefits Advisory Committee under paragraph 67(1)(aa) of the Act. Paragraph 67(1)(aa) provides
that included in the functions of the Medicare Benefits Advisory Committee, established under section 66 of the Act, is to consider, in pursuance of a reference to it by the Minister for Health, whether medicare benefits should continue to be payable in circumstances specified by the Minister and to make recommendations arising from that consideration in writing to the Minister.
On 1 November 1983, in pursuance of paragraph 67(1)(aa) of the Act, the Minister for Health referred for consideration to the then Medical Benefits Advisory Committee the question of whether medical benefits should continue to be payable in respect of professional services rendered for the purposes of chelation therapy. Following amendments by the Health Legislation Amendment Act 1983, the Medical Benefits Advisory Committee became the Medicare Benefits Advisory Committee and, as provided for by sub-section 49(2) of that Act, continued its existence as though it had originally been established as the Medicare Benefits Advisory Committee under section 66 of the
Act as amended. In response, the Medicare Benefits Advisory Committee made recommendations, subsequently accepted by the Minister for Health, that medical benefits should not be payable for professional services performed in connection with chelation therapy.
The technique of chelation therapy involves the repeated intravenous administration of ethylenediamine tetra-acetic acid or its salts which has been claimed to remove calcium from the walls of human arteries and therefore to be effective in the treatment of arterioscelerosis. In its consideration, the Committee had regard to the lack of acceptable evidence of chelation therapy as an effective treatment, its wide range of undesirable side-effects, and the views of the Australian Drug Evaluation Committee, the Royal Australian College of Physicians and the Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand.
The regulations prescribe circumstances for the purposes of sub-section 19A(1) of the Act in which medicare benefits are not payable in respect
of professional services unless the Minister otherwise directs. These prescribed circumstances are, in accordance with the recommendation of the Medicare Benefits Advisory Committee, where professional services are rendered in relation to the provision of chelation therapy, being the intravenous administration of ethylenediamine tetra-acetic acid or any of its salts, otherwise than for the treatment of heavy-metal poisoning.
The regulations came into effect on the date of their notification in the Commonwealth of Australia Gazette.