Medicare and Mr Turnbull

political leadership: Labor leader Bill Shorten visited a Melbourne hospital on Tuesday as he sought to equate support for Medicare with political leadership."You can't be a serious prime minister of this country if you don't prioritise the health care of Australians," he said."I will test, in this election, my values against Mr Turnbull's."Mr Turnbull meanwhile, told reporters in Darwin only the coalition was focused on issues that matter."Mr Shorten has now abandoned any participation in the economic debate and, instead, engaged in one desperate lie after another," he said, according to Nine News Australia. The prime minister said there would be no outsourcing of the Medicare payments system, but technology and experts would be brought into the government from the private sector to bring the outmoded system into the 21st century."It will continue to be delivered by government - that is my commitment ... an absolutely unequivocal commitment."Labor has been basing its attack on a "market testing" project funded in the coalition government 2014/15 budget which attracted 48 expressions of private sector interest, a $5 million taskforce whose work is not due to end until December and a Productivity Commission inquiry into service contestability. The prime minister comments came as Labor stepped up its attack on the coalition Medicare "privatisation" plans and the latest Essential poll gave the opposition a 51-49 two-party lead ahead of the July 2 election. The coalition insists there has been no cabinet discussion. But the letter itself has been deemed "classified". Mr Turnbull told parliament in February there would be some "outsourcing" of back-office operations and administration. Documents released under freedom of information, seen by AAP on Tuesday, show Mr Turnbull wrote to his health minister on October 17 last year in regard to the payments system project. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.