Australia seems to be doing its best to ditch it. Medicare levy plus a surcharge above a certain wage, but that surcharge goes away if you have private health cover. Health insurance companies have zero incentive to set premiums below what that surcharge would have been, particularly when, if you take up private health after you turn 31, then there’s a govt loading on it. Gap charges (ie the cost over and above that covered by Medicare) grow every year, bulk billing is disappearing, the public hospital system is constantly being underfunded, etc.
Just privatise healthcare, what’s the worst that could happen?
/ looks at US healthcare, and how well privatising just about everything else has gone for us so far
Australia seems to be doing its best to ditch it. Medicare levy plus a surcharge above a certain wage, but that surcharge goes away if you have private health cover. Health insurance companies have zero incentive to set premiums below what that surcharge would have been, particularly when, if you take up private health after you turn 31, then there’s a govt loading on it. Gap charges (ie the cost over and above that covered by Medicare) grow every year, bulk billing is disappearing, the public hospital system is constantly being underfunded, etc.
Just privatise healthcare, what’s the worst that could happen?
/ looks at US healthcare, and how well privatising just about everything else has gone for us so far