What is the point, exactly?
You can claim what medicare covers, then you pay "the gap" yourself.
Apart from accommodation in a private hospital room private health does not cover anything above medicare anyway, thus "the gap".
In an "emergency" not much ............. for other procedures it can buy you some choices; ie you don't have to wait on a public health waiting list, you choose your doctor/specialist, you choose your time/place. So there is definitely a point for those that value the benefits.
Had private health insurance for over 30 years and made one claim, cancelled 11 years ago but now the tax man hits me up for 2% levy for no private insurance, just started on lowest possible useless plan to counter tax, otherwise wouldn't bother.
My old man has just come through cancer treatment successfully thank goodness. He had access to latest technology approaches that were not available on Medicare and won't be for quite some time.
Having private health has literally saved his life.
So yeah there's a point I reckon.
as others have said emergency better off in public hospital anyway. but if you need a knee or hip replaced or cataracts or any high waiting list thing done then some of the public lists are crazy long. years and years.
Select to expand quoteSurfer62 said..
Had private health insurance for over 30 years and made one claim, cancelled 11 years ago but now the tax man hits me up for 2% levy for no private insurance, just started on lowest possible useless plan to counter tax, otherwise wouldn't bother.
And that is the answer... it became more cost effective to have it, then not...
Being able to choose your surgeon rather than getting the work experience one is a huge bonus. As we found out with a broken collar bone (Daughter) and appendix (wife) last year. Emergency was a huge waste of time (10 hours) and then sent home, you will be right with a panadol. The collar bone was totally out of place and the appendix was close to rupturing.
broke my knee cap on the 22nd of dec, bak home all fixed in a brace by lunch time on the 24th.
I had private for 3 months, only problem was they wonted proof it wasn't pre excisting.
$15000 I didn't have pull from my ass to pay for it. private is good if you use it or are unfortunate
enough to need it.
I have gad private insurance since they brought in the levy. The annoying thing is they want you to prove to them you have had coverage each time you change providers...
The most annoying thing is that i have had work breaks where i dont earn enough to need it, but i still need to pay anyway to keep my coverage up for when i do start to earn more.
Select to expand quotePugwash said..
And that is the answer... it became more cost effective to have it, then not...
This is why we have it i think? Family of four with 2 kids under 5 is about $320 a month with HBF.
The only time we've actually used it was for maternity cover. The level of care compared to public is much better but it also cost us around $2500 out of pocket with each kid.
You could ask that question about all insurances...
Roll the dice if you can't see the point of it! They're probably useless until you need them
I just pay for mine out of pocket and make sure I put away each week. Just got to make sure the hospitals don't rip you a new one and push through expenses a few weeks after the operation. The hospital costs are the really killer but I find surgeon and anesthesiologist are just affordable.
Select to expand quotepatsken said..
You could ask that question about all insurances...
Roll the dice if you can't see the point of it! They're probably useless until you need them
I think in this case though, we are pushed into having it because the penalty charged is more than the cost, which is a very artificial playing field.
I object to it in that it has been setup to encourage customers to keep up the cover, which is what the insurance companies were arguing what was causing the problems, yet there doesn't seem to be anything that otherwise makes it an attractive proposition. You would hope that it would sell itself, but apparently not.
Private health insurance is another crony capitalist industry. Its an industry controlled by laws and regulations as thick as twenty Bibles stacked on top of each of each other. So for the customer its expensive and poor value for money like every other industry that is controlled by laws and regulations.
Most people would not buy into this industry unless they effectively had a thief opening their wallet and lifting cash out of it if they did not buy a product from this dodgy industry.
Select to expand quotepatsken said..
You could ask that question about all insurances...
Roll the dice if you can't see the point of it! They're probably useless until you need them
I'd happily roll the dice, but you're not allowed to. If you earn enough to self insure, they take the money out of you as extra tax anyway, so it's effectively mandatory. That has to impact competition and price.
For me:
Windsurfing ankle injury on about 23rd Dec..... appt with surgeon and MRI on Xmas eve and advice from the best bloke going on 28th. If I was public I'd have sat there another 3 weeks with ice and panadols.
When I had shoulder done, same thing you get the best surgeon best physio and pay nothing. HBF said I'd had $30,000 out of them in 10yrs. 
Select to expand quoteMark _australia said..
For me:
Windsurfing ankle injury on about 23rd Dec..... appt with surgeon and MRI on Xmas eve and advice from the best bloke going on 28th. If I was public I'd have sat there another 3 weeks with ice and panadols.
When I had shoulder done, same thing you get the best surgeon best physio and pay nothing. HBF said I'd had $30,000 out of them in 10yrs.
So you're the reason I pay so much for my HBF. 
I suppose I have been lucky and haven't claimed hardly a thing in years but you never know when you may need it.
I must admit the only reason I have it is because of the levy.
It is a rort foisted upon the Australian people by the Howard government. Any private market the government interferes is inevitably skewed by their ill thought out subsidies; health is just one of them. The extortionate threat of not joining a private health provider and being exposed to a growing tax time ransom in order to line the pockets of private companies is counter productive to what should be a market governed industry, driven by value for money offerings and responsible business practices. On top of that is the massive subsidies drawn from the tax payers purse and gifted to these private companies which is now around 6.5 billion dollars per year. You have to ask what sort of free health system we could have if those subsidies were directed back into public hospitals. We are a very wealthy country that can afford to provide this essential service. No, I'm not a fan and we deserve better. Just my opinion....
theconversation.com/the-multi-billion-dollar-subsidy-for-private-health-insurance-isnt-worth-it-76446
^^ Spot on.
It's a tax penalty scheme to allow government to invest less in a properly run public health system that provides the same level of care for all Australians.
Meanwhile, the relentless pursuit of useless surpluses continues while Australians pay.
Pay with their aged relatives' lives.
Pay with a two tier education system.
Pay with environmental degradation.
Pay with low wage growth.
All while governments under-invest in our nation and private corporations rape our great mineral and Human Resources for excessive gains that are largely off-shored.
