Medicare neglected by both sides of politics for generations.

The Greenpoint Medical Centre serves 8000 patients, including hundreds of vulnerable people in the lower-income suburb of Bridgewater.

These patients will now have to seek an alternative after administrators at the clinic confirmed they would close in December due to the lack of available doctors.

Protests and recriminations followed with the community expressing anger that Greenpoint - owned by private health group IPN - was closing at Bridgewater, but not at its site at higher-income Sandy Bay.

The company blamed the severe shortage of qualified doctors for the decision.

But beyond the local community backlash, a game of political blame shifting began across all levels of government.

The state opposition immediately seized on the closure, with Lyons MHA Jen Butler saying the closure showed that Health Minister Guy Barnett didn't care about fixing the state's health system - despite his only weeks in the portfolio.

She said Premier Jeremy Rockliff should step in to stop the centre from closing.

Mr Barnett countered, saying general practice was the responsibility of the federal government - "no ifs, no buts".

He said the federal government needed to act to save the clinic.

Despite that, he said state government measures like funding bulk-billing urgent care clinics in Launceston and Hobart were helping, as was a new training scheme aimed at getting doctor trainees into rural areas.

Both initiatives were funded jointly by the federal and state government.

The federal politicians got into the blame game.

Liberal federal candidate for Lyons, Susie Bower, said the closure was a sign that federal Labor was failing the electorate.

"I have been calling for an urgent care centre for Lyons for over a year and the Labor government has refused to act," she said.

"How many more GP clinics will have to close before Canberra wakes up to the crisis that is unfolding beneath their nose?"

Labor Lyons MP Brian Mitchell said he wasn't looking to blame anybody, but then blamed IPN - owners of Greenpoint.

He said the company earned $19 billion last year and the decision to close was a "commercial choice".

Mr Barnett has the right of it - general practice is the responsibility of the federal government. Calls for him to intervene to save the clinic miss the point.

The state government cannot fix Medicare.

The Liberals at the federal level have neglected it just as much as Labor has.

Labor first froze indexation of Medicare rebates in 2013 and it was continued under the Coalition until 2021.

The freezes stripped $3.8 billion from Medicare, forcing doctors to move away from bulk-billing as their costs rose and their rebate income stagnated.

Labor's federal budget this year addressed some of their concerns.

It boosted Medicare indexation by an additional $1.5 billion - nowhere near enough to make up for the frozen decade.

At the end of the day, doctors are business people too.

Unless governments stump up the cash to fund Medicare, more and more doctors will be unable to keep their doors open.

The Australian Medical Association says Medicare needs an infusion of cash.

Let's not waste any more time shifting blame.

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