Yes, savings from increased participation in private insurance outweigh the costs the government incurs by subsidising private health insurance rebates. But rebates can be better targeted.
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Articles on Private health insurance rebates
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We found rebates don’t do much to encourage older people to sign up for private health insurance.
Young people don’t see the value in private health insurance and are dropping their cover in droves. Allowing under 55s to pay lower premiums, based on their lower risk, could keep them in the system.
A raft of changes to private health insurance in Australia will come into effect on April 1. Here’s what you need to know.
Private health insurance premiums will rise from April 1, leaving consumers wondering if they should give it up or downgrade to save money.
The 5.6% increase amounts to the average family paying about $300 more a year for an average policy.
Removing subsidies for the 50% with private health insurance is politically unpalatable. But scrapping rebates for ancillary services can be a good place to start.
In the final instalment of our series, Lesley Russell asks whether Australians need private health insurance, and what a two-tiered systems means for quality, access and equity.
Any new such financing system would need to carefully balance competition and choice, with affordability of coverage and equal access to quality care.
Private insurance, by its very nature, suppresses price signals and encourages over-servicing and cost escalation.
Some people balk at the cost of private insurance – especially the relatively young and healthy – because they don’t see the value of it when they are already covered under Medicare.
How much do Australians pay for private health insurance?
The half of Australians who have private health insurance will be face higher bills from Wednesday, as insurance premiums increase by an industry average of 6.18%.
Prompted by the government’s Commission of Audit, health policy analysts have spent the first weeks of the year vigorously debating ways to rein in Australia’s rising health budget and to make the system…
We have come to see private health insurance as an essential part of the national health funding mix, but it’s actually quite a costly way to fund health care. A well-designed system with a single national…
“The changes to lifetime health cover will increase [private health insurance] premiums by up to a reported 27.5%. This is hitting many local residents very hard, with some struggling to find the money…
The government will no longer refund 30% of the cost of the loading paid by people who take out private health insurance after the age of 30. The removal of the rebate from the lifetime health cover loading…
Health took a back seat in this year’s federal budget. While the proportion of money being spent on health is increasing in 2013-14, the bulk of it is due to spending commitments made in previous budgets…
Top contributors
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Senior Lecturer, School of Economics, University of Adelaide
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Lecturer, Public Sector Finance, University of Canberra
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Professor of Health Economics, University of Technology Sydney
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Professor of Health Economics, Flinders University
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Professor of Health Economics, University of Bologna, University of Newcastle
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Adjunct Associate Professor, Menzies Centre for Health Policy, University of Sydney
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Policy Head, Research Assets, Sax Institute; Co-Director, Australian Primary Health Care Research Institute, Australian National University
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Reader in Health Economics, Centre for Health Economics, University of York
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Director of the Centre for Health Economics, Monash University
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Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice, The University of Melbourne
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Professor, Public Health, Victoria University, Victoria University
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Senior Policy Adviser, National Rural Health Alliance; Adjunct Lecturer, University of Sydney
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Senior Lecturer, University of Sydney, University of Sydney
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Phd Candidate (Economics), University of Newcastle
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Assistant Professor of Economics, University of Oklahoma
