you only need to have basic hospital cover - for DH and I even top level cover is about $80 a month, we get 30% of that rebated (standard thing) and if our income is over that limit mentioned, we don't have to pay the extra. you're going to pay the 1.5% or whatever it is regardless, so it's just the extra amount.

we pay our premiums fortnightly and honestly don't notice it. DH was 30 when we went into PHI so we pay more for that due to his age. we're under the family threshold now so we don't NEED to have PHI to avoid that premium, but the benefits we've had over the past few years (IVF, both had major dental surgery in private system etc) have far outweighed the costs to us. the dental surgeries we've had would have had to be either out of pocket entirely, or at least 18 month wait (as opposed to the 1 and 2 month waits we had...