KEVIN Rudd is to delay a crucial meeting with premiers until April 19, with his office insisting that the change is not due to the uncertainty in the South Australian and Tasmanian election results.

The Prime Minister had been expected to ask the states to agree to his proposal for the commonwealth to take over majority funding control of public hospitals at a Council of Australian Governments meeting on April 11.

That meeting has now been delayed until April 19, The Australian reports.

Mr Rudd is facing problems getting the states to agree to his proposal, and had been leaning heavily on support from Tasmania and South Australia.

A spokesman from the Prime Minister's office said the election results did not play a part in delaying the COAG meeting. He said the postponement had been decided earlier.

The Prime Minister yesterday promised to work with Liberal and Labor governments to crunch a deal on direct federal funding of hospitals through GST monies.

"Working families want better health and better hospital services and I will be working with any premier from any state, Labor or Liberal, to bring that about," Mr Rudd said.

Mr Rudd is to debate health policy with Tony Abbott tomorrow at the National Press Club in Canberra.

The Opposition Leader yesterday warned Australia didn't need "amateur hour experimentation" to fix its public hospitals, and said he would not be using the debate to unveil his own health plans.

"I'm the opposition. My job is to ask the questions," he said.

"My job is to scrutinise Mr Rudd's proposal."

He said the plan "won't make any difference to the patients any time soon. There will be no more beds, no more doctors, no more nurses and no more money until 2014 at the earliest."

Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner urged viewers to look beyond the flim-flam of tomorrow's debate.

"Tony Abbott's treating opposition like some kind of backpacking holiday, where he's out there in the Speedos and on the quad bike and on the surf board, occasionally dabbling in some off-the-top-of-the-head policy pronouncements," he told the Nine Network.