Private Healthcare Australia (PHA), the lobby group representing the private health insurance industry, tweeted on Wednesday that there’s no need for an inquiry into the troubled sector… because there have been so many other inquiries into totally unrelated issues.
Well OK, sure. But the list of reviews in PHA’s tweet (apparently a screenshot from a story in The Australian) doesn’t quite help make the group’s case.
It includes, for example, the aged care royal commission, which has uncovered such shocking cases of elder neglect and abuse that it has felt the need to recommend immediate action in its interim report.
Also listed is the disability royal commission, which was announced after revelations of widespread abuse in that sector, and the Home Affairs review into the treatment of refugee footballer Hakeem al-Araibi who recently received an apology from the AFP after he was detained in a Thai prison thanks to the department’s bureaucratic stuff-ups.
Is PHA saying these are all reviews we could have done without?
And lest we forget the banking industry’s insistence that a royal commission was “unnecessary” when the industry was “already undertaking reform”.
The private healthcare sector might be just as confident of its own performance, but a number of public health and consumer advocacy groups, including the Consumer Health Forum and the Australian Healthcare and Hospitals Association, beg to differ.
Meanwhile, a recent Choice investigation found more than 200 “silver” tier policies which cost more than “gold” tier policies from other providers.
PHA has called the criticisms “absolutely ridiculous”, and argued the mere fact that Choice was able to show the price differences proved the government’s private health comparison site was working.
But that suggestion felt a bit rich to Choice’s Dean Price.
No matter what any review may come up with, I will not touch any of these private health insurance products with a barge pole.
I will take my chances with Public Health system on principle, although I could afford one of their dodgy policies.
Since PHI is such good value there’s no further need for the massive taxpayer subsidy of mostly the well off at the expense of poorer folk.
The one thing they definitely need is a better PR team given this embarrassing effort.
Privatisation = profitisation. How in Hades is any nation supposed to rein in its health care costs by privatising health insurance? WT..?
As someone who works in the private health system, it really worried me when all our Mutual Funds were allowed to be swallowed by British United Providential Association (BUPA), others were swallowed by NIB and then Tony privatized Medibank Private. The privatization commenced under Howard.
There are some smaller Mutual Funds left and on the whole they appear to pay significantly higher rebates than the privately owned (BUPA is actually owned by 10 lords of the UK) or the share market owned NIB and others such as AHM….
We moved to defence health, and are as happy as tops with it.
I think it is time to bring this smug lazy government to heel. I am diverging to aged care and then back to private health insurance.
They are in their 3rd term of government and have known without needing to call the Royal Commission they called into aged care. The mess being caused by allowing “for profit” operators to insert themselves into the sector, whilst Scotty will deny that he took $16,000,000,000 out of the funding when he was treasurer , whilst his ears go red. They know the problem, they are afraid to fix it!
This government has continued the attack on Medicare that commenced with Howard. Medicare Rebates have been treated like Newstart.
The Medicare rebate schedule actually determines the rate at which private health funds can pay for any procedure in hospital. This means that an anesthetist will mostly have a largish out of pocket cost because the Medicare schedule is appalling.
By keeping the Medicare Schedule depressed, they reduce what the private funds can pay for in hospital procedures and that increases their profit margin. Too clever by half Scottie and friends! I observe that a former politician is the CEO of NIB.
It really gets incestuous when the various CEO’s serve on the Remuneration tribunal and so, set the parliamentarian’s salary and entitlement packages.
Does all of this sound bad enough? How about BUPA agreeing to pay some tax for the first time, only after being given the Garrison contract, which pays for our soldiers and returned service personnel and widows, mega bucks.
Not only in Healthcare Ratty, has heat form in Aged Care as well.
Bupa has become too big to fail, analyst says – MSN.com
https://www.msn.com › en-au › news › other › bupa-has-become-too-big-t…
Sep 12, 2019 – An ABC analysis has found that more than half of its 72 aged care homes are failing basic standards of care and that a third of them are putting
With the arrival of neo-liberalism Business Welfare has become a condicio sine qua non for the Corporate sector and at times condiciones sine quibus non. The PHI is a perfect illustration of that as is the Private Aged Care Sector where for both their easy answer is to lobby for ‘more public money.’ My understanding of Capitalism and Free Markets is that if you see opportunity you are free to invest to meet market need and your success is dependent on your ability to meet that need, the greater your success in meeting a need the greater your market share. Not any more, success now is measured by the degree you can access public money and influence legislation in your favor. The obvious consequences of operating a neo- liberal economy seem to have escaped its promoters.