Health Inusrance

[wearestardust]

Originally Posted by tash3

all i think is how much more useful it would be to stick that on the home loan instead.

If your house burns down, can you afford another mortgage to build a new house on top of the one you will have to continue to pay on the one you've lost? Would the bank even give you another mortgage? (I don't know your circumstances, but the answer to both these questions for me is an emphatic "no").

[wearestardust]

Originally Posted by Chookmum

Hi I found a policy through BUPA called Your Choice Extras.

...

I would be carefully comparing the episode and maximum benefits.

Glancing at that list, I can see at least five things that one would want as basic cover. the utility of some of them perhaps depends on where you are in life.

With an eye to Schrodinger's Wombat's question, I'd also be looking carefully at what the marginal cost difference is - ie what is actually saved per week between the 'pick 4' option and a regular arrangement.

This may be of help. Or not.

http://www.privatehealth.gov.au/

[Goldenmane]

Originally Posted by wearestardust

If your house burns down, can you afford another mortgage to build a new house on top of the one you will have to continue to pay on the one you've lost? Would the bank even give you another mortgage? (I don't know your circumstances, but the answer to both these questions for me is an emphatic "no").

Further, though I'm not a home-owner:

Can you feel confident that you will always, totally, completely, every moment, both there and aware, and available to act, etc should something crap happen?

If you can, you're far more obsessive than I feel comfortable being near. Shit happens.

[stevebrooks]

Originally Posted by wearestardust

In the case of business assets, what would be the cost to the business of having to bear the full cost of replacement, or doing without?

Interesting point in case here, Australia Post doesn't hold insurance on any of its vehicle fleet. The point with insurance on vehicles is that its all a numbers game, the insurance company relies on have many thousands of insured vehicles that never need it to cover the ones that do need it, but what happens when you actually own that many vehicles? Insurance payment then becomes a dead loss, you ditch paying someone else and and all the overheads involved in paying the insurance companies employees wages, taxes, building rents etc etc and become what is know as a self insurer. Many large businesses are actually self insured.

The way insurance works is a historical accident, any large city has the population necessary to manage their own private health insurance, to act, as it were, just like Australia Post and be a self insurer. Nobody in a large city would need to pay health insurance to seperate fund, the cost of the people who need health services would be covered by the masses of people who never used it, in fact the insurance industry is just a layer of self funded bureaucracy that could be run just as easily by the state, but of course that's called socialism :-)

[BlueDevil]

Knowing how slow things can be in the public system for non-urgent hospital treatment I wouldn't want to be without health insurance.

My biggest gripe though is that when you use health insurance you get stung three ways:
- you pay for the insurance
- you pay the medicare levy
- you still end up with a sizeable bill for surgeon, aneasthetist, various tests etc.

And if you go to a private hospital ED department then you get stung around $300 - $400 (plus more for any procedures) that you can't claim on your insurance.

I would like to think that by paying insurance and Medicare I should be able to walk out of a private hospital with not a cent to pay - unfortunately not!

[DezinerAU]

n fact the insurance industry is just a layer of self funded bureaucracy that could be run just as easily by the state, but of course that's called socialism :-)

This is exactly what has always mystified me about the conservative desire to force everybody into private health insurance instead of having state-funded health. It's the same damn thing except the former locks out those least able to afford it while the latter covers everybody equally.

Oh, that's right, with private health they get to blame the poor for being poor and for not "choosing" to have coverage (even though it's only a matter of choice for those who have the money to spare, not for those who don't).

[Logic]

Originally Posted by BlueDevil

Knowing how slow things can be in the public system for non-urgent hospital treatment I wouldn't want to be without health insurance.

My biggest gripe though is that when you use health insurance you get stung three ways:
- you pay for the insurance
- you pay the medicare levy
- you still end up with a sizeable bill for surgeon, aneasthetist, various tests etc.

And if you go to a private hospital ED department then you get stung around $300 - $400 (plus more for any procedures) that you can't claim on your insurance.

I would like to think that by paying insurance and Medicare I should be able to walk out of a private hospital with not a cent to pay - unfortunately not!

That's what's turned me off at this point, as a relatively young healthy (fingers crossed) person I can't justify private health cover as on my income I'm still better off paying the levy then getting private health cover and getting the rebate.


i sent this from my iPad

[tash3]

Originally Posted by wearestardust

If your house burns down, can you afford another mortgage to build a new house on top of the one you will have to continue to pay on the one you've lost? Would the bank even give you another mortgage? (I don't know your circumstances, but the answer to both these questions for me is an emphatic "no").

I replied to this earlier but it doesnt seem to have worked so if a second one appears just ignore it lol.
If the house burns down we will be screwed so i dont mind having home insurance but i do have an issue with our contents insurance. My hubby insists on insuring every bloody thing in the house so we pay high premiums, if the house burns down the last thing i will be thinkin about is replacing dvds and other usless crap. Sure, go ahead and insure clothes, blankets,basic furniture etc but insuring the little things is a complete waste of hard earned cash

[tash3]

Originally Posted by BlueDevil

Knowing how slow things can be in the public system for non-urgent hospital treatment I wouldn't want to be without health insurance.

My biggest gripe though is that when you use health insurance you get stung three ways:
- you pay for the insurance
- you pay the medicare levy
- you still end up with a sizeable bill for surgeon, aneasthetist, various tests etc.

And if you go to a private hospital ED department then you get stung around $300 - $400 (plus more for any procedures) that you can't claim on your insurance.

I would like to think that by paying insurance and Medicare I should be able to walk out of a private hospital with not a cent to pay - unfortunately not!

I agree. We have full coverage and during each of my pregnancies we still had to pay huge sums of cash for various things.

[wearestardust]

Originally Posted by stevebrooks

Interesting point in case here, Australia Post doesn't hold insurance on any of its vehicle fleet.

And that makes perfect sense when one's business is large enough that adverse events are high probability and there are enough reserves to cover costs of replacing assets.

The average home and car owner doesn't have that luxury, of course.

The way insurance works is a historical accident ... . could be run just as easily by the state, but of course that's called socialism :-)

It seems to me that questions about who employs the doctors, owns the physical infrastructure, and makes the payments, is an outdated class-war approach and much less important than who pays for what when and how much. England and Canada both have near fully-public systems, and the US, the Netherlands, Japan and Switzerland have near fully-private systems. There's no particular correlation just on that basis between who owns the infrastructure and employs the health professionals, and outcomes.