{"id":889679,"date":"2026-09-12T19:36:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-12T19:36:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/889679\/"},"modified":"2026-09-12T19:36:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-12T19:36:12","slug":"scrap-the-cap-backlash-against-federal-government-limit-on-health-services","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/889679\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Scrap the cap\u2019: Backlash against Federal Government limit on health services"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Federal Government is alone over its new $5000 limit on health services for veterans, after politicians across other parties overwhelmingly rejected the move.<\/p>\n

Veterans are now calling to “scrap the cap” completely, concerned their healthcare will now rest with the Department of Veterans’ Affairs.<\/p>\n

\"Armed<\/p>\n

The Federal Government is alone over its new $5000 limit on health services for veterans, after politicians across other parties overwhelmingly rejected the move.\u00a09News<\/p>\n

Former navy clearance diver John Armfield visited parliament this week and stood alongside fellow veterans who all laid down their medals in protest of the change to their healthcare.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe key person who can hold a veteran together and save, and fix this problem, is the general practitioner,\u201d Armfield, a Fair Care for Veterans advocate, told 9News.<\/p>\n

A new veterans affairs policy will cap government supported payments for allied health services at $5000 annually from July 1 next year.<\/p>\n

It will replace the existing 12 visit per provider limit.<\/p>\n

\"Senate\"<\/p>\n

The changes have united Coalition, One Nation, Greens and independent Senators who all voted against it in the final hours of a sitting session in parliament this week.\u00a09News<\/p>\n

This currently can be extended by a GP but under the changes, requests for additional funding will need to be approved by the department.<\/p>\n

The changes have united Coalition, One Nation, Greens and independent Senators who all voted against it in the final hours of a sitting session in parliament this week.<\/p>\n

\u201cStay cool and stay calm veterans,\u201d independent Senator Jacqui Lambie said.<\/p>\n

\u201cApart from the Labor Party, you have the rest of us on your side.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fellow independent Senator, David Pocock, said he was left scratching his head over the changes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hear from veterans about just how hard it is to get the support they need to be well, [so] why on earth is the government adding more paperwork,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Nationals Leader Matt Canavan said the Labor party needed to \u201ctake away this anxiety from the veteran community\u201d.<\/p>\n

The vote in the senate was largely symbolic and will be knocked back in the lower house next week.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a move though that adds pressure on the government to justify this new policy.<\/p>\n

“We very much understand the concern that some veterans have about the department processing requests,” Minister for Veteran Affairs, Matt Keogh, said.<\/p>\n

“We’ll be working with them to make sure that they get the best outcomes and that they’d have no gap in service delivery while that assessment’s being made with DVA.”<\/p>\n

But for veterans, the fight against the financial cap continues.<\/p>\n

“We remember, please do the right thing,” Armfield pleaded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Federal Government is alone over its new $5000 limit on health services for veterans, after politicians across…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":889680,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-889679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=889679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/889680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=889679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=889679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=889679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}