Ricardo Said:

Australia health Insurance for Tourists over 70?

We Answered:

You posted to the USA only board. Maybe someone in Australia can help you out.

Pamela Said:

where can i find health insurance in melbourne australia?

We Answered:

There are many insurers who provide health insurance for people on temporary visas such as yours. The government owned Medibank Private is one:
http://www.medibank.com.au/Visitors-Cove…

Others include the following, but there are many more. Medibank Private and the first two below are organisations that provide private health insurance to Australians as well as people from overseas. The third specialises in Overseas Visitor/Worker Health Cover:
http://www.mbf.com.au/HealthInsurance/He…
http://www.nib.com.au/home/newtonib/whyn…
http://www.austhealth.com/#

Compare their level of cover and costs and decide on the one that's best for you. You should also have good travel insurance that will cover repatriation in the event of a serious accident.

Sheila Said:

Am I required to have a health insurance to visit Australia?

We Answered:

If you intend coming on a Tourist visa, you are not required to have health insurance though you would be very well advised to take out a good travel insurance policy that will cover medical emergencies. Australia is a VERY expensive country if you need medical or hospital treatment.

Most tourist visa applications are denied because the applicant has been unable to satisfy DIAC that they have sufficiently strong ties to their home country to ensure that they will leave the country before their visa expires. Visas are also denied if the applicant cannot show sufficient financial resources to satisfy DIAC that they are unlikely to work illegally.

Leona Said:

Why should I have health insurance in Australia?

We Answered:

I have ambulance cover from medibank.
I pay my Medicare levy only and when I got pancreitis was in Royal Perth 5 weeks, paid nothing extra except fot TV/phone/radio.
The doctors, nurses were gr8.
The main draw back I can see by not having private health insurance:-
choice of doctor, long wait for elective surgery.
Trust this helps with your decision

Heather Said:

Hi guys, Do you think it is really worth it to have private health insurance in Australia?

We Answered:

I too work in the health Insurance industry and I think what you are getting stuck with is a cover with little or no Gap benefits. If you can find a fund that participates in the "health fund alliance" you are more likely to find doctors that will participate in a no(or a little) out of pocket expenses. Big funds generally don't join the alliance because, basically they don't have to, but smaller funds join the alliance to help there members get better benefits.

Also if you earn over $50k and are over 30 there are penalties that will occur when you have no (hospital) cover.

Ronald Said:

Do you think health insurance in Australia is worth it?

We Answered:

For people who really believe that private hospitals are better than the public health system, I think they should feel free to use them and therefore may want health insurance to help cover those costs.

However, I am not one of those people. I think that the public system is quite satisfactory and it deserves our advocacy.

Irrespective of this, if you have the money you are perfectly entitled to be a private patient (in a private or public hospital) if you choose, whether or not you have health (hospital) insurance. It just means that you won't have a private fund that you can make a claim against.

Having said that, most people who advocate private treatment do not realise that when you are treated as a private patient and do not have a fund to handle the costs for you, you can still make a claim with medicare to be reimbursed some of the costs. The amount reimbursed will be based on the medicare scheduled fee, and of course only applies to services that medicare has an item number for.

This is no different to visiting a GP or specialist who refuses to bulk bill. You take your bill to medicare, and they will pay you a proportion (usually 75-85% of the schedule fee) and you carry the remaining cost.

Further, there are a couple of medicare thresholds which apply when you're medical expenses exceed certain levels. One relates to gap payments (the portion between the schedule fee and the amount medicare normally reimburses) and the other relates to out of pocket expenses (any expenses over and above the schedule fee).

You have to be pretty sick (or have a lot of sick dependants) for these thresholds to kick in, but it's still excellent that they are available.

Unlike private funds, medicare doesn't place a maximum amount that they will reimburse you in any given year. In fact, under medicare, the more your medical expenses are, the more medicare will end up paying (due to the thresholds mentioned above).

It bothers me that many, many, taxpayers are members of private funds purely because of the medicare levy surcharge and the lifetime healthcover rules. This gives the health funds a captive audience, to the extent that I think that people who have "extras" cover are being subsidised by those with hospital cover. Next time you receive information from your health fund telling you how much in every dollar is paid out in benefits, giving a breakdown, you'll see that for hospital cover only fund members, a very large part of your contribution goes towards funding benefits that are not available to you!

So, it's not really a question of whether health insurance is worth it because market forces are not really permitted to decide. Fund memberships are artificially propped up by people who have done their maths and have worked out that it's going to cost them more in medicare levy surcharge than it will to pay for the least expensive hospital cover available, but might otherwise be happy to be covered purely by medicare. That's not much of a choice.

Personally, I believe that Medicare is one of the best things that our federal government provides because it's available to everyone - not just the wealthy and not just the extremely poor, and I don't want to see it eroded. There seems to be a prevailing belief that by discouraging people from using the public health system, this somehow helps it. It won't. That's the kind of logic that leads to services being reduced "due to lack of utilisation".

I would like to see a public health system that even people who can afford to go private will want to use, purely by choice. And if almost everyone uses it, why should anyone begrudge their tax dollars supporting it? And of course, everyone (rich or poor) should pay the same price, which again is not what happens when the private system is utilised. By increasing the use of the public system there will be strong political motivation to ensure that it's well funded and maintained for the benefit of everyone.

What's happening with health insurance would be analogous to the fire brigade being segregated into public and private sectors. We all benefit from having the fire brigade available. Whether our house is the one burning down or not, we like to know that we can call on the fire brigade to spring into action and that our taxes ensure that this service is available to us. We don't pay a fee depending on how big the fire is or how big our house is or what have you. The fire brigade does it's best to help everyone equally. We don't feel a need to call on a private fire brigade that will charge us more money to do the same job and sends us silly leaflets in the mail or extinguishes fires exclusively with holy water while they set us up with a deck chair and a colour tv to watch, and subsequently we don't need to subscribe to special insurance to try and offset those (potential) costs. Yet this is effectively what we are doing to our health system.

It's ridiculous!