Necessity of Private Health Insurance?

[feeb]

Depending on income it can reduce your tax if you are in a certain bracket that pays more levy on medicare.

[~Raven~]

Depending on income it can reduce your tax if you are in a certain bracket that pays more levy on medicare.

This is a good reason!

Now we are coming to realise why it is a good idea to have it besides the luxury of birthing in a private hospital. 4 little mouths full of teeth that will need checkups and possibly orthadontic work if they take after their father are making extras cover very appealing right now lol.

Another reason to think about keeping it is that while you are fit, you could stand in a pothole or fall off your bike and you might need "elective" surgery for a resulting injury. Someone I recently met decided to self fund her knee reconstruction because she didn't want to wait for 18 months on the public waiting list and it cost her $8k! She has PHI now

[Doing my best]

It really comes down to personal preference. I for one wouldn't be without it, to us it is as essential as car and house insurance.. But there are plenty of others who will argue that it isn't necessary.

At the moment (except for having both babies privately), we haven't used the equivalent to what we have paid, but both DH and I have not paid to go to the dentist twice a year for the last 4 years, I paid $20 for 2 pairs of glasses a few months ago. I have wisdom teeth that need to be removed, but I am able to wait till it suits me, and my family to help with the kids if I require it. (they aren't causing any pain, but are there). So for us, I would say it comes down to freedom of doing things when it suits us vs having to wait, and then maybe being called up when it doesn't suit.

[Peg]

we've been tossing up the same question due to the additional costs involved in being in PHI. Not only are we paying for the insurance, but we still have to pay quite large private fees anyway. Before we had PHI, my DS1 needed to have a small operation. I was told by the specialist that I could go on a waiting list, or I could simply pay the fees involved directly to the doctors at the childrens hospital. I took the option of paying for the operation to be done immediately and the cost was around $1500 for the theatre, anesethesist (sp?), pediatric surgeon & medications and followup visits afterwards. So not having PHI does not mean you CANT get treated immediately for elective surgery....the option is there to pay for it if you dont want to go on waiting list which is pretty much what we are doing with PHI anyway.

We've decided that after this baby (we are not having any more), we will be ditching the hospital cover and keeping the extras cover with our health fund. Teeth, glasses, podiatry etc can be really costly on their own yet these are the things that we seem to use the most (so far) so i feel confident being covered for them and we are willing to pay for non emergencies....and if there is an emergency the public system is there to fall back on.

[Bathsheba]

Maybe get a Mod to link the two threads JB Not sure if multiple threads are allowed. I'd probably keep it in finances and budgeting.

[allycat06]

We got rid of our hospital insurance last year and now have extras only. I think PHI is definitely worth it for the extras, we can always go to the dentist, physio etc without hesitation and of course ambulance cover but for us hospital was a complete waste of money. DH and I are both young and healthy and DS is a very healthy child.... in the case of an emergency we would be happy to use the public system. Our next baby when ever that may be will probably be born at home and the chances of us needing an elective procedure in hospital is pretty slim so we took the gamble and turfed it.

[Bathsheba]

I thought you had to pay the Medicare levy if you only had the "extras" and not the hospital coverage... seems a very expensive way of doing things... paying the Levy and the premiums for Extras... I could be wrong though...

[Peg]

I thought you had to pay the Medicare levy if you only had the "extras" and not the hospital coverage... seems a very expensive way of doing things... paying the Levy and the premiums for Extras... I could be wrong though...

We will have to pay part of the levy if we only have extras. We should be eligible for a reduction based on our combined taxable income. The levy is usually 1.5% of your taxable income if you are a single person, but it reduces with a spouse and dependents.