Medical insurance vs Medicare Loading

[NicF]

3 hours ago, Tulip1 said:

No one knows when they will need care. Just because you've never needed it they doesn't mean you're only likely to need it if you get knocked of your bike.  There are a great many people (especially men) who suddenly have a heart attack in their 40's, a lot more common than many people realise. They'd probably said the same as you the day before it happened. I've never been in hospital and I'm older than you but I'm aware that could change at any time.

Thing is if you have a heart attack or some other kind of emergency you are likely to end up in the public system for treatment anyway.  Private health really comes in for non emergency treatment, like a hip replacement, when the main advantage is the smaller waiting time.  It’s not like you wouldn’t get it done in the public system but you would most likely have to wait longer, up to a year or more longer in some cases.  It’s worth noting that for some things there can also be a wait in the private sector, although the wait is less then the public sector wait.  We don’t have private health insurance any more and the public system and has been perfectly fine for us so far.  Even for things that were not urgent we have been seen relatively quickly.  And the one time the wait was going to be well over a year we paid and went private instead.

[AussieMum]

On 13/07/2018 at 01:50, Emma_M said:

Do people think it would maybe be worthwhile just putting money by instead of having additional private health insurance??

 

 

Something to bear in mind with this is that some private hospitals or specialists won't accept self-paying patients or only for certain procedures.  This is because while they might have enough saved for a procedure if everything goes perfectly, it doesn't take much for things to go wrong and suddenly there can be VERY expensive things needed like additional surgery or specialists involved, ICU stay, extended inpatient stay and/or rehabilitation, etc, etc, which can blow the cost out from $10,000 to $100,000 or more.

The other thing to note is that while public is excellent and efficient for life-threatening conditions and emergencies, people can and do spend months and years in excrutiating pain and with very limited function while on waiting lists and having surgeries cancelled and rebooked (to make from for emergencies) - things like joint replacements, for example, make your life hell but it's not going to kill you so if you're in the public system, you just have to wait your turn.