Private health insurance is a dud. That's why a majority of Australians don't have it | Grogonomics

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

61% : Right now final submissions are being made by private health insurers to the government for an increase in insurance premiums next year.
58% : In the late 1990s, after 15 or so years of Medicare, fewer than a third of Australians held private health insurance.
57% : The result is still fewer than half the population covered by private health.
54% : So we have had 25 years of carrots and sticks, all designed to make private health insurance more attractive, and we've ended up with fewer people having such insurance and more people not being covered for everything and likely having to pay when they access it.
53% : Not only does it remain untrue that private health insurance takes stress off the public system, it also remains a fib to call it private - it's a public system merely carried out in an inefficient manner to deliver a product most people don't want and haven't ever wanted.
51% : Although the introduction of the Affordable Care Act has shifted some private health insurance from voluntary to compulsory, the nation still massively relies on a system designed to profit from people's ill heath:If the graph does not display click hereThis brings us to the recent reports of private health insurance companies lobbying the Albanese government for premium increases of between 5% and 6% next year.
49% : This resulted in a surge in insurances with excess and co-payments up from about 30% to now 88%:If the graph does not display click hereSimilarly, whereas once private health covered everything, now the conditions that are insured are more honoured in the exception than the coverage:If the graph does not display click hereThis is the main change since I last wrote of the con of private health insurance.
49% : Whereas in 1999, 95% of people had private health insurance with no exclusions, now 65% of policies have exclusions in which various items will not be covered.
45% : He introduced a surcharge to penalise higher income earners who did not have private health insurance.
44% : Even more damning on the worth of private health insurance as a product is that the percentage of Australians in their early 30s that have it is now as low as it has been since the introduction of the lifetime health cover:If the graph does not display click herePerhaps more importantly, those who are "covered" are covered in the sense that a Band-Aid covers a gaping wound.
42% : "While this might seem obvious, it ignores the reality that the main reason private health insurers might go out of business is because people hate the product they offer, and even with all the carrots and sticks designed to force people to take out health insurance, a majority of Australians do not want it.
42% : Over six years ago I pondered if private health insurance was a con.
36% : In light of reports they are seeking increases above 5%, it is worth remembering that private health insurance is a terrible way to deliver good health outcomes.
35% : Among OECD nations, the US spends the most on health and as a reward they have one of the worst life expectancies:If the graph does not display click hereThere are several reasons why they have this outcome - from structural racism to the serious lack of economic safety nets such as decent minimum wages - but the chief reason is their healthcare overly relies on private insurance in a manner unlike most other nations.
28% : Howard returned to the stick and in 2000 effectively forced people to join by 31 years of age with "lifetime health cover" - a program that was accompanied by TV ads showing everyone standing under umbrellas because apparently more people taking out private health insurance made us all better off.

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