Shorten's Medicare crusade continues

Bill Shorten is not about to give up on his crusade over Medicare.

Even as Prime Minster Malcolm Turnbull's denials become more emphatic that his government won't privatise Medicare, the Labor leader will remain on message when he campaigns in Sydney on Wednesday.

Mr Shorten will liken the Liberal government's decision to freeze the Medicare rebate to doctors as another form of privatisation.

That's because doctors will be forced to charge patients more every time they are sick.

Mr Shorten's health spokeswoman Catherine King will quote Stephen Duckett, former Department of Health secretary and now of the Grattan Institute, as saying "privatisation is increasing the proportion of private payment in the health system".

Ms King believes there is only one consequence of the rebate freeze - bulk billing rates will fall.

"The more you cut Medicare, the more you are forcing patients to fork out for health care from their own pocket," Ms King says in a statement on Wednesday.

Labor has also dug up a quote from Mr Turnbull from May 2009, in which he says: "In an ideal world, every Australian would have private health insurance." Mr Turnbull has repeatedly denied claims of privatising Medicare, calling them "outrageous and bizarre".

"Labor is simply lying," Mr Turnbull said in Darwin on Tuesday.